While you’re looking at the sales prices of true comps for your own home, also look at the withdrawn and expired listings in your market.  Never make the mistake of saying, “If they’re not on the market, they don’t count,” because expired and withdrawn listings can tell you a lot about what’s real as far as prices are concerned.  Do the homes that haven’t sold have any common attributes?  Are they all in the same building, for example?  Or are they all on a well system instead of city or town water?  There are many hidden factors which affect home sales and analyzing the unsold comps in your market can give you many clues to what not to do. Finally, listings that came on the market overpriced will be a huge share of the unsold and expired group, so pay close attention to what those properties do and do not have going for them.  Bottom line, the unsolds and expireds failed to bring the buyer and you want to be successful, so learn everything you can from the mistakes made by others.

Next, you want to look at pending sales.  These are the properties that have accepted offers and have gone to contract, but have yet to close.  Real Estate agents will not always give up the sales price on their pending listings, but it never hurts to ask.  Look hard at how long each of the pendings was on the market before receiving an acceptable offer and factor that into your pricing strategy as well.