how can you pull your comps to even see if you want to sell?

You can build a useful picture of your home's value yourself in about thirty minutes, but you should know going in that in Texas you cannot verify a single sold price on your own. Texas is one of the handful of non-disclosure states. Sale prices are not recorded on the deed and are not searchable at the county clerk. That one fact changes everything about how you approach this. Amanda is right that the portal estimates are unreliable, and here is the actual number so you can size the risk. Zillow's own published accuracy data puts the nationwide median error for off-market homes at roughly 7 percent, compared to roughly 2 percent for homes that are actively listed. Off-market is you. And median error means half of all estimates are worse than that. On a $350,000 house, that is half of Zestimates being off by more than $24,000 in one direction or the other. It is a conversation starter, not a comp. Here is what you can genuinely do yourself in Bullard, in order. Start with the appraisal district. Bullard sits mostly in southern Smith County with a piece extending into Cherokee County, so pull up Smith CAD's records search, or Cherokee CAD if your parcel is on that side of the line. Look up your own property first and check the basics: living area square footage, year built, lot size, bed and bath count, and any noted improvements. Errors are common, and finding a square footage mistake on your own record before you list is worth real money. Then pull the same fields for eight or ten homes near you. You will not get sale prices, because Texas does not publish them, but you will get the district's assessed and improvement values, which tells you exactly how the county ranks your house against its neighbors. That ranking is genuinely informative even without prices. Second, set up a saved search on realtor.com or whichever portal you prefer, filtered to a one to two mile radius, same bed and bath count, plus or minus about 400 square feet, and built within roughly fifteen years of your home. Watch two categories. Active listings show you what you would be competing against. Pending listings show you where the market is actually clearing right now, and pendings are the single most useful free signal available to you, because they are current in a way that closed data never is. Third, and this is the honest limitation, understand what you still cannot see. You cannot see actual closed prices with any confidence in Texas. You cannot see seller-paid concessions, which have been common lately and can be worth thousands of dollars, meaning a house that "sold for" a number may have effectively sold for meaningfully less. You cannot see accumulated days on market or price reduction history. All three of those live in the MLS, and they are exactly the variables that separate a real comp from a guess. So the sequence I would follow is: do the appraisal district work and the pending-listing tracking yourself, so you walk into the conversation informed and hard to snow. Then do what Alexandria and Amanda both suggested and ask a local agent for a CMA. It is free, it is normal, and you are not committing to anything by asking. The difference is that after the CAD work you will be able to tell whether the CMA is any good, and you will be able to ask why a specific comp was included or excluded. If there is real money riding on the number, meaning an estate, a divorce, a buyout between family members, or a property tax protest, Amanda's other suggestion is the right one. Pay for a licensed appraiser. It runs a few hundred dollars and you get a defensible written opinion instead of a marketing document. For a tax protest specifically, the appraisal district's own comparable data is what you will be arguing against, which is another reason to get familiar with the CAD site now. One thing worth flagging since you asked this in 2022. That was the top of the frenzy, and comp behavior has changed a lot since. Today I would not put much weight on any sale older than about ninety days, and in a smaller market like Bullard where volume is thin, I would lean harder on active and pending listings than on stale closed data. I am a real estate professional, not a licensed appraiser and not a tax consultant, so treat anything here as a framework rather than a valuation. To be upfront with you: I work the Los Angeles South Bay and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, so I am not licensed in Texas and I would not be the person running your CMA. If you would like, I am glad to connect you with a good agent covering Bullard and the Tyler area from my referral network, someone who can pull real MLS closed data including the concessions the portals hide. My name is Zoltan Peresztegi and the introduction costs you nothing. Zoltan

A local agent is usually able to assist you with this task. Keith Jean-Pierre Managing Principal The Dapper Agents Real Estate Operations in ALL 50 States

Stop looking at Zillow or Redfin; their algorithms are often wrong by thousands of dollars. You have two real options: Ask a Realtor for a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis): This is usually free. We look at what actually sold in your neighborhood in the last 6 months, not just what is listed. Pay for an Appraisal: If you want hard numbers without a sales pitch, hire an appraiser directly.

The best way to find out what your home is worth is to connect with a local real estate agent and ask for a Comparable Market Analysis, often called a CMA. This report compares your property to similar homes that have recently sold in your area, giving you a realistic idea of your current market value. Agents usually provide this service free of charge, and it can be a much more accurate starting point than just looking at online estimates.

Hi there - An experienced agent can absolutely help you review market data and give you a clear picture of what your house could sell for and how long it would take. In a shifting market experience is key. Particularly agents who have worked in both buyer and seller markets have the skills to advise you best. Good questions to ask are - how long have you been a realtor? What is your average sales price? How long are your listings typically on the market before they go under contract?

Hi Cynthia, Call a local Real Estate Agent and ask them for a Complimentary Market Analysis. They should bring you comps for your home and answer your questions!