Depending on your purpose for pursuing a property - buy and hold, flip, wholesaling, etc - you will need/want to know the comparable sales prices at a different point in your analysis.
We are buy-and-hold investors. As such, my initial analysis is usually to determine if a property does, or could, produce a sufficient level of net income - and cash-flow after financing. We then determine the amount we would be willing to pay for that cash-flow. If the ask price is in the ballpark, we would proceed to pull comps for the purposes of draughting an offer and negotiating.
If you are flipping or wholesaling properties, then your margins are more tightly coupled to the After Repair Value (ARV) of the property and you will want neighbourhood comps early on so you can establish an exit price and work backwards from there to your purchase.
I am not aware of a Buyers Brokerage Agreement being mandatory in any part of the country. We have never signed one, nor would we. On the same hand, if we begin a property search with a real estate agent, we will conclude the purchase through her/him, provided they are performing. If the agent is not performing, we may sever our working relationship during the search ... if the agent helped to find the property, but is not performing during the negotiations and diligence, we will conclude the transaction, but would not use them again.
Private purchases are a different matter. We would not bring our real estate agent in on private deals we source ourselves, but if we needed her/him to pull neighbourhood comps, I have no hesitation to ask. We may pay them a fee for their time, but more often then not, they'll pull the comps at no charge knowing we will be purchasing more properties through them in the future.
Wholesaler/flipper · montreal, quebec · Member since 2013 · 37 posts · 6 votes
13y
Hi welcome to bp, here are two links for centris and duproprio, there's an english button up right for the latter. I think you can get the sold price on duproprio but not on the other one except if you are an agent.
toronto, ON · Member since 2013 · 27 posts · 4 votes
12y
You can consult with some agent or Property development company for this. They will guide you better In this. I actually think that the price depends upon the building structure and the locality.
Investor · Stouffville, Ontario · Member since 2011 · 213 posts · 65 votes
12y
There are two ways to find out what properties sold for in Canada.
Pull title or talk with a Licensed Realtor to pull up the recent solds. Realtors if they know what they are doing also have access to the private sold prices.
Rental Property Investor · Fredericton, New Brunswick · Member since 2013 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes
12y
Having a realtor on your team is very good for this, and other reasons.
Another avenue is via the tax accessor. In many provinces the most recent sales prices of any property, along with the property tax assessment, are available on-line. In some places, like NB & NS, this information is freely available, in others, like ON, you need to purchase the information.
@Roy N. just want to say - wow you have a lot of votes! Thats cool.
@Gary McGowan Until those darn realtors allow everyone to access the MLS data we are out of luck. :( Or we can start paying $100 a month or something like that to access it, we have to depend on our Realtor friends. Right Gary!
Along with a Realtor, I have developed a way to use a reverse MPAC formula to come up with the Tax Value of the property. Another words if you know the Yearly Taxes you reverse the formula to get the tax value of the property. Challenge is that this is usualy 10% lower than the actually value of the property. So its really only a guideline, not a hard and fast value. Just add 10% to what you get. (And sometime this value is just plain wrong too) That's why you need to be a geographic expert, not a generalist.
I do not recall having bumped into you before ... I'd say welcome, but you've been here longer than I ;-) Good to {virtually} meet you.
If you routinely work with a realtor and you are buying or selling multiple times a year with this individual, they will be more than happy to pull comps for you.
Developer · Ottawa, Ontario · Member since 2014 · 212 posts · 169 votes
12y
There are lots of online tools in the US to get sold comps. The transactions are a matter of public record and are usually published online in most counties.
Things aren't nearly as open here. In Canada, the sales are also available from the land registry, but are not published online. You can physically go to the land registry office and request the info.
There are two online methods to access the data. If the sale was done by a realtor, it will be on the MLS and any realtor can pull the comps from the MLS.
All real estate lawyers in English Canada subscribe to a service that enables them to search title. You may be able to get your lawyer's clerk to perform searches for you at a modest cost.
Hope that helps.
Victor Menasce
President of Ottawa Real Estate Investors Organization.
Investor · Boca Raton, FL · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
12y
Try Zoocasa, they give their "zoopraisal" which is similar to a Zestimate, but is not very accurate, way worse than zillow. But at least gets you in the ballpark.
There are lots of online tools in the US to get sold comps. The transactions are a matter of public record and are usually published online in most counties.
Things aren't nearly as open here. In Canada, the sales are also available from the land registry, but are not published online. You can physically go to the land registry office and request the info.
Victor:
Not quite true for all jurisdictions. While, if memory serves, in Ontario you must pay for a subscription to access sales prices (and tax assessments?), that is not universally the case. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia all recent sales prices - since 2009 in New Brunswick - and tax assessments are available online without charge.
Investor · Edmonton, Alberta · Member since 2015 · 11 posts · 0 votes
11y
Hello all!
If I may ask a question... as a new investor I don't feel extremely confident asking a realtor to bring up solds for me. How often would you ask for such a "favor" when you haven't really done anything for them yet! Ie: bought through them. The search for a good deal can go on for quite sometime!!
If I may ask a question... as a new investor I don't feel extremely confident asking a realtor to bring up solds for me. How often would you ask for such a "favor" when you haven't really done anything for them yet! Ie: bought through them. The search for a good deal can go on for quite sometime!!
Don't they get tired of helping and hoping?
Cory,
If you are working with a real estate agent that is investor friendly, or an investor themselves, as your buyers agent, they will likely have little problem with pulling comps. When we are looking at residential real estate (1-4 units) we do everything we can to {dis}qualify a property on our own and only ask for sales history and comps when we plan to make an offer.
If I may ask a question... as a new investor I don't feel extremely confident asking a realtor to bring up solds for me. How often would you ask for such a "favor" when you haven't really done anything for them yet! Ie: bought through them. The search for a good deal can go on for quite sometime!!
Don't they get tired of helping and hoping?
Cory,
If you are working with a real estate agent that is investor friendly, or an investor themselves, as your buyers agent, they will likely have little problem with pulling comps. When we are looking at residential real estate (1-4 units) we do everything we can to {dis}qualify a property on our own and only ask for sales history and comps when we plan to make an offer.
Hi Roy!
I'm not sure how to work the "tag" feature yet, so hopefully this works! Thanks for your reply! Hopefully I have an investor friendly realtor! I guess I'll find out! I don't want to bother her too much and, as you mentioned, only when I plan to make an offer. I guess where I am a little stuck here is that I'm not sure how to figure out the market value of the property without sold properties to use as comparables..? I don't know if I want to buy until I know what I think it's worth right? Or until I know I have negotiating room, which I think comes from knowing the history of the listing and original purchase price - again from the realtor. Perhaps I am just having an hard time seeing how I can make a decision without the information the realtor has! I used to be a realtor a number of years ago and using the information realtors have is how I was taught to evaluate property. It's possible that that training has made it hard for me to wrap my head around any other way of evaluating property, but I can't even think of how else one would go about it. What about in private deals? I wish I didn't completely lose track of what is going on in the market and with property prices... I was just starting to get the hang of it when I had to leave real estate!
Do you have the mandatory Buyer Brokerage Agreement where you are? How would one get around that so they do not have to buy through the realtor all the time but the still realtor feels like it is worth their time to help? Does this just go back to finding one who understands investors?
Depending on your purpose for pursuing a property - buy and hold, flip, wholesaling, etc - you will need/want to know the comparable sales prices at a different point in your analysis.
We are buy-and-hold investors. As such, my initial analysis is usually to determine if a property does, or could, produce a sufficient level of net income - and cash-flow after financing. We then determine the amount we would be willing to pay for that cash-flow. If the ask price is in the ballpark, we would proceed to pull comps for the purposes of draughting an offer and negotiating.
If you are flipping or wholesaling properties, then your margins are more tightly coupled to the After Repair Value (ARV) of the property and you will want neighbourhood comps early on so you can establish an exit price and work backwards from there to your purchase.
I am not aware of a Buyers Brokerage Agreement being mandatory in any part of the country. We have never signed one, nor would we. On the same hand, if we begin a property search with a real estate agent, we will conclude the purchase through her/him, provided they are performing. If the agent is not performing, we may sever our working relationship during the search ... if the agent helped to find the property, but is not performing during the negotiations and diligence, we will conclude the transaction, but would not use them again.
Private purchases are a different matter. We would not bring our real estate agent in on private deals we source ourselves, but if we needed her/him to pull neighbourhood comps, I have no hesitation to ask. We may pay them a fee for their time, but more often then not, they'll pull the comps at no charge knowing we will be purchasing more properties through them in the future.
Business Consultant · Calgary, Alberta · Member since 2014 · 178 posts · 36 votes
11y
Along with the comments in this forum, I do believe that if you are dealing with FSBO and are marketing to this segment, having the ability to get comps would be beneficial.
I would def check the property tax value, and also do a quick search of any existing properties for sale - I will then see if there is a big discrepancy between the asking price and the property tax value. This would be give is a decent rule of thumb to estimate a value of a FSBO lead.
Ofcourse, going to a realtor helps, - perhaps you are not using the realtor for that specific deal but you find other ways to add value, i.e. give him referrals etc.
Hi everyone, I realize this is an old thread, but I might have a few (fresher) solutions here.
For COMPS: -DuProprio (lets you view houses sold through their service, works best outside of Montreal) -JLR (lets you view properties sold through Centris and some Off-market ones, works better in Montréal) -Le Registre Foncier du Québec (very user UNfriendly, but quite affordable and lots of information) -Mon Prospecteur (VERY user friendly, in addition to including DuProprio's comps function, they pull off-market deals from Le Registre Foncier and present them to you neatly.
For RENTS mkt analysis: -Rent-O-Meter (I find, has insufficient data in Mtl) so... -Zipplex (a province of Québec native, I have found they have excellent data for the Montréal area. Have not tried elsewhere.) -Kijiji & Co. (check out apartment offers in the area)
Hope this helps someone down the road! Cheers all :)
Redfin is great for comps. Go to the filter and click ‘sold’. Make sure you’re only looking in the last month as it defaults to 3. In the market, something that sold 3 months ago might as well be 3 years ago.
As a Mortgage Agent I’m able to access a report called Purview from the land registry. It shows who owns the property, mortgages on the property, equity, estimated value (the actual value used by lenders in many cases), and comps. It’s a useful tool for investors I work with.