Why Does the Sold Price Compared to the List Price Matter?
It applies to both the buyer and the seller conversation…
For Buyers:
When I do my market research and run a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) for you, part of what I am looking at is the sold price compared to the list price for the neighborhood where you want to buy. So, the sold price is what the home actually sold for, and the list price is the ORIGINAL price the seller had the home listed on the market for (not the price that is lower if they dropped the price at some point). On some CMA sheets I may send you, you’ll see it noted as “SP/OLP%” (example shown in the images above).
For February 2026, we saw this percentage jump up a few points, which means that the market is moving faster and you are in more competition with other buyers. For the specific neighborhood I’m sharing, Eagle Watch in Woodstock, this is pretty on target with the area as a whole. So, say the seller has the house listed for $400,000, this 98% means it will probably sell for around $392,000 EXCEPT that we have to take into account the time it has been on the market AND that the market is getting more competitive. Remember, this is past data from February. The closer we get to June, the faster our market usually moves. So, if a home is new to the market, you may want to be a little more aggressive in your offer.
I am not saying to waive inspections or appraisals or even pay more, necessarily. It’s so home-specific that it’s worth digging into this data for every house you want to write a contract on. Also worth noting — the “CC” number on that data. That’s the amount the seller gave to the buyer in concessions that lessens the money that you bring to closing. From experience, in the past 30 days in Eagle Watch in Woodstock, the sellers have covered a majority of the buyers’ closing costs. In most cases, the buyers actually received concessions along with lower sales price. So, review this data with your agent. It’s important to see what is happening so you can write an offer that gets you the home you want without giving more than you need to.
For Sellers:
When we list your home, I pull this same data for your neighborhood. We review the photos, the listing descriptions, the concessions and all that has happened so that we can put your home in the best place in the market that we can.
When we talk about sold price over list price, we’re looking to understand what other sellers in your neighborhood have negotiated with buyers to get the house sold. We don’t want to chase the market down. We want to price for the current market. This is the season where we could price in the mid-high part of your price range and still expect to see showings and offers come in. Some homes right now are getting a few offers in the first weekend the home is on the market. Now, in March 2026.
When I pull this data, I’m also more specific to your exact home. I’m not necessarily comparing your 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom home to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home, but we do still want to see it for reference. That size difference can usually mean a price difference, which means there is a buyer difference also. We want to prepare and price for the buyer who will buy your home, so we want to see what buyers who have bought the most similar homes to yours did when they bought.
What we can also expect if you lived in Eagle Watch and wanted to list your home is that the buyer may ask for closing cost concessions. This could be due to repairs, or they just want help with their upfront costs. Even some of the homes that went under contract within the first week gave some concessions to the buyer, and some still sold under their original list price (though several got 1-2% over their list price).
These numbers help us determine what the market is doing and how we can set you up for success. Because these numbers get updated with every closing, I track them all the way through your listing time to make sure we are positioned how we want to be.
