Documenting the Subject Property

A CMA ordinarily records the subject before the search for sales begins. The question is not whether the subject was described but whether it was described in a form that can be compared, adjusted, and supported when a seller or a buyer asks. The difference between a listing description and an analysis record is the difference between adjectives and facts.

Three parts of the subject record carry most of the weight.

Gross living area from the best available record, with the source noted. The figure is above-grade finished area only. Gross living area for the subject and each comparable is generally taken from the best available record (the assessor’s card, the public record, the MLS listing, builder plans or a prior appraisal), with the source noted. Where sources disagree, the difference is noted, not guessed at. Finished below-grade area is recorded on its own line with its quality noted. Because errors here run through every size comparison that follows, the ANSI standard is taught in the next lesson, so the agent knows how the appraiser measures and why the appraiser’s figure may differ from the record.

Condition as facts, not as a rating alone. The year of the kitchen, the bath updates, the age of the roof and the heating system, and any deferred maintenance a buyer would see. A rating (excellent, good, average, fair, poor) is useful only when the facts behind it are written down, because the comparison to each sale is made on those facts. Condition can have a substantial effect on price, and listings often describe it with adjectives.

Recorded as facts, the condition of a subject reads as follows.

Recorded this way, the subject can be compared with a sale whose kitchen dates from 1995 and whose roof was replaced last year, item by item rather than by impression.

Site and location factors, both directions. Lot size, and anything that adds to or detracts from the site: corner, cul-de-sac, water frontage, open space behind; or a busy road, a commercial neighbor, an easement across the lot, a rear lot with deeded access. The favorable factors usually find their way into a listing. The unfavorable ones are the ones the analysis has to carry, because the sales generally reflect them as well.

Where the facts come from

Each part of the record has a source, and in Connecticut most of them are public. The assessor’s property record card, which most towns publish online, shows the above-grade area as the assessor measured it, the year built, the style, the room and bath count, the lot size, outbuildings, and a sketch of the footprint. The building department’s permit file shows what work was permitted and when: an addition, a finished lower level, a roof, a heating system, a deck. The land records in the town clerk’s office hold the deed and any easements or rights of way. Where the property is served by a private septic system, the local health department or health district holds the system’s records, including the number of bedrooms it was designed for. The seller supplies the rest, and what the seller supplies is checked against a record wherever one exists.

When the record and the house disagree

A difference between the records and the house is itself a fact for the subject record. A finished lower level with no permit on file, a fourth room used as a bedroom in a house whose septic system was designed for three, or a sunroom that the assessor carries as an enclosed porch is recorded as found, with the source of each figure. Each affects how the subject compares with the sales, and each is likely to be raised by a buyer’s inspector, lender or attorney. Recorded at the start, it is reflected in the range rather than discovered after a contract is signed.

The rest of the record

The remainder of the record is what a listing record generally captures: property type and style, bedroom and bath configuration recorded separately rather than as a count, garage, and features that sales in this market show a price for. Property type is worth one further word, because it determines what the subject can be compared to at all: a condominium unit, a two-family, and a single-family house are different property types, and a comparable is ordinarily drawn from the same type.

Configuration matters to the comparison. Three bedrooms on the second floor and a fourth on the lower level are not the same as four on one floor, and two full baths with a half bath are not the same as one full bath with two halves. A bedroom in finished below-grade area, even one completed under a permit, is recorded on the below-grade line with that area, and the bedroom count is stated for the above-grade levels so that the subject is compared on the same basis as each sale. The record also changes with the property type. For a condominium unit it adds the floor and position of the unit, the common charge and what it covers, parking, and any special assessment in place. For a two- to four-family it adds the unit mix, current rents and lease terms, and which utilities are separately metered. For new construction it adds the plans and specifications, the builder’s standard and upgraded finishes, and the lot’s position in the subdivision.

How it applies. The office standard for the subject record is that it can be compared to a sale without further questions: a sourced gross living area, condition in facts, and the site factors that cut against the property as well as for it. A subject described as “beautifully updated colonial, approx. 2,000 sf” cannot be compared to anything, because there is nothing to measure the sales against.

Documented against the records, that description becomes a record that can be compared. The assessor’s card shows 1,820 square feet above grade; the MLS figure of 2,000 included a 180-square-foot three-season porch that is not heated with the house. The difference is noted, and the card’s figure is used with its source stated. “Beautifully updated” resolves into a 2019 kitchen and a 2016 main bath, with the half bath original and the boiler dating from 2004. Set beside a 1,900-square-foot sale with a kitchen remodeled in 2021, the subject is now the smaller house with the older kitchen, and the comparison runs in the right direction.