Comparable sales decide most home values. How far an appraiser looks for them is a judgment call, and federal data shows that call isn't the same everywhere. Here's the problem, our rule, and how we tested it.
Fannie Mae sets no fixed distance for comparable sales. Each appraiser decides. Across 14 million home purchase appraisals, the average distance to comparable sales was very different by neighborhood.
Cities are denser, so part of the gap is expected. But a tighter circle ties a home's value to the few blocks around it. If those blocks were undervalued in the past, the low values keep repeating.
FHFA Uniform Appraisal Dataset aggregate statistics, purchase appraisals 2019–2023, Home Equalizer analysis.Every homeowner gets the same search, in every neighborhood. No judgment calls.
We look at sales within 1 mile of your home first, for every home.
We go to 2 miles, then 5, only if there aren't 3 strong matches (score 70+) from the last 12 months.
A great match across the border still counts. Your value isn't boxed in by a map line.
If a home like yours sold on your street last month, yours should be worth about the same today, unless the market shifts sharply. The match score measures how close each sale is to that ideal, from 0 to 100.
Your value blends the best matches, with the highest scores counting most. Each sale is adjusted for size and for how the town's tax assessor values your home compared with it. You see every sale, its score, and why.
We valued homes that sold in New Jersey in 2026 using only the sales that came before them, then compared our number with the real price.
| Match score | Typical miss | Within 10% | Within 20% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90–100 | 7.4% | 62% | 86% |
| 80–89 | 10.0% | 50% | 77% |
| 70–79 | 12.0% | 43% | 71% |
| Under 70 | 15.5% | 34% | 61% |
| All homes | 10.0% | 50% | 77% |
Appraisers choose how far to look for comparable sales. In Black neighborhoods, they look much closer to home.
Oct 14, 2026 · 4 min readAppraisal biasThree of the biggest studies, what they found, and what they mean for your home's value.
Oct 14, 2026 · 6 min readAVMsHow Zestimates and other automated valuation models work, how accurate they are, and where they fall short.
Oct 14, 2026 · 5 min read