Three numbers, not one
Renovated retail. What the house fetches once it is in the condition a financed buyer expects. This is the number an agent's comparable sales usually describe and it is the largest of the three. Getting it requires doing the work and waiting out a full sale.
As-is retail. What it fetches listed in its current condition. Lower, and sometimes much lower, because a house a lender will not finance loses most of its buyer pool.
Cash today. What a buyer pays to take it now, unrenovated, with no financing and no contingencies. Lowest of the three, and the only one that comes with a date you choose.
The Coram median of $575,000 is a renovated-retail-ish figure. It is not the number for a house that needs work.
What an automated valuation cannot see about a Coram house
They are built from public records and recent sales, which makes them decent at the middle of the market and poor at the edges.
The edge is where most people asking this question actually sit: a house that has not been updated in decades, one that has taken water, one with an open file at the Coram building department. An algorithm has no input for any of that, so it returns the number for a normal version of your house.
What to do this week, at no cost
Two appointments and you have the whole picture. An agent's market analysis gives you the retail end, and it is normally free. A written cash offer gives you the floor, and it should also be free and should not commit you to anything.
We will give you ours in writing within 24 hours and we would encourage you to get the agent's view as well. If the analysis says listing beats our number, list it. That is a good outcome and we would rather you reached it with our figure in hand than without it.
What actually moves the number on a Coram house
In order: whether a lender will finance it, what the mechanicals need, what the municipal file says, and what comparable houses on your actual street closed at.
Notice that the first three are all really the same question, which is how much risk a buyer is taking on. That is why condition moves Coram prices more than anything else and why two similar-looking houses can be far apart. It is also why the $575,000 median is a poor guide for any individual property.
What an appraisal is, and what it is not
An appraisal is an opinion of value prepared for a lender, to establish whether the house is adequate security for a specific loan. It is not a sale price and it is not commissioned for you.
A market analysis from an agent is a different document: an estimate of what the house would fetch listed, usually free, and usually the most useful of the three for deciding what to do. An offer is neither. It is what one particular buyer will pay. Confusing these three is behind a lot of frustrated conversations about what a Coram house is worth.
Why two cash offers on the same house can differ
Partly because buyers differ on what the work costs. A buyer who runs their own construction prices a roof differently from one who will subcontract it at retail, and that difference flows straight into the offer.
Partly because of what happens to the house afterward. A buyer intending to renovate and resell is working from the finished value. One intending to assign the contract is working from what another investor will pay, which is a lower number by definition.
And partly because some offers are not meant to hold. A figure set high to win the contract and reduced after an inspection is a different product from a figure meant to survive to closing.
How to find out where you stand
One visit, usually under half an hour, and a written figure the next day. No cost and no obligation, and you are welcome to take it straight to a Coram agent and ask what they think.
We would genuinely encourage that. The comparison is the whole point: our number is only useful to you next to what a listing would net after commission, repairs and the months of waiting. If that comparison sends you to an agent, you have still got what you came for.
Common questions
Will you tell me what my Coram house is worth even if I do not sell to you?
Yes, in writing, at no cost and with nothing attached. A number you can take to an agent for a second opinion is more useful to you than one you cannot.
Why is your number lower than the online estimate?
Because the estimate is pricing a version of your house with a working roof, current mechanicals and a clean municipal file, and ours is pricing the house that exists. Where those two are the same house the numbers are close. Where they are not, the gap is the work.
Do I have to let you inside to get a number?
Preferably, because a figure from an interior walkthrough is one we can hold. Where the house is unsafe or inaccessible we will work from the exterior, photographs and whatever reports exist, and say plainly that the number carries more uncertainty.