ARV Is an Opinion Until You Can Defend It
After-Repair Value drives every number in a flip — your maximum offer, your rehab budget, your exit price. Get it wrong by even 5–8% and a deal that looked like a solid B grade can turn into a loss once selling costs and holding costs are subtracted out. The investors who consistently hit their numbers aren't smarter about ARV — they're more disciplined about how they arrive at it.
The Sales Comparison Approach, Step by Step
ARV is built from recently sold comparable properties, adjusted for the differences between them and your subject property after renovation. The process, done correctly:
- Pull sold comps, not active listings. Active listings are asking prices — what a seller hopes to get. Only closed sales tell you what a buyer actually paid.
- Stay within 0.5–1 mile and 3–6 months. Palm Beach County micro-markets shift block by block — a home two neighborhoods over, even in the same zip code, can be a materially different market.
- Match square footage within roughly 20%, and bed/bath count exactly where possible. A 1,400 sq ft 3/2 and a 2,200 sq ft 3/2 are not the same comp, even on the same street.
- Adjust for condition — not just presence. A comp that sold "renovated" needs to be renovated to the same standard you're planning, not just recently painted.
- Weight the most similar, most recent sale most heavily. Three comps averaged evenly is weaker than one near-identical, two-month-old sale anchoring your number with two supporting comps.
Common ARV Mistakes That Wreck a Deal
Mistake
Using the highest comp in the set as "the" ARV instead of a data point.
Fix
The highest comp shows what's possible under ideal conditions — top-tier finishes, a motivated buyer, a hot week on market. Your ARV should reflect the median of your best comps, not the ceiling.
Mistake
Ignoring days-on-market trends when the comps are stale.
Fix
A comp that sold in 4 days tells you something different than one that sold in 90 days after two price cuts. If the trend across your comp set is lengthening DOM, your ARV should be conservative, not optimistic.
Mistake
Comparing your planned renovation to comps that were "flipped" at a lower standard.
Fix
If your comps were investor flips with builder-grade finishes and you're planning a higher-end renovation, you may be underestimating ARV — or if the reverse is true, overestimating it. Match finish level, not just the word "renovated."
What the Market Is Doing in Palm Beach County Right Now
As of mid-2026, Palm Beach County single-family home prices have continued climbing — the countywide single-family median sale price reached roughly $700,000, up over 11% year-over-year, while the broader all-property-type median sits closer to $530,000. That spread matters for ARV work: it means county-wide averages are close to meaningless for a specific flip, and neighborhood-level comps are non-negotiable. A property in a $300k entry-level pocket and a property in a $900k established neighborhood are both "Palm Beach County," but they're not remotely the same market for comp purposes.
Where an Agent's Eye Beats a Spreadsheet
Automated ARV tools pull comps algorithmically, but they can't walk the comp and see that its kitchen was actually a mid-grade refresh, not the full gut the listing photos implied. They can't tell you that a specific street backs up to a busy road and trades at a 5% discount to the block behind it, or that a particular HOA has a rental restriction that quietly caps investor demand and depresses resale. A local, licensed agent's comp pull starts with the same sold data — but it's filtered through knowledge of the actual streets, not just the zip code.
"I've had investors bring me a deal underwritten off three comps pulled from an app, all technically within a mile — except one of them backed up to the Turnpike and sold at a discount nobody accounted for. That's a $20,000 ARV mistake hiding in data that looked perfectly clean on a spreadsheet. Comps need a second set of local eyes, not just a search radius."
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