Comp (comparable sale)

A recently sold property similar to the one being analyzed, used to estimate value.

Good comps share size (within ~15% of square footage), age (within ~10 years), location (same neighborhood / school district), and condition. Stale comps (over 6 months old) lose accuracy in moving markets. Investors use comps for two purposes: (1) determining ARV for flips and BRRRR, and (2) sanity-checking purchase price for buy-and-hold. Always pull 3-5 comps minimum, exclude obvious outliers (REO sales, distress sales, family transfers), and use the median rather than the mean.