How do you determine the ARV of a property?

The easiest way is to have have a good agent do a CMA (Certified Market Analysis) for you. You can also go to Zillow and get comps there.
Your comps should be no more than 90 days old, use sold comps. You can use active comps, but appraisals use sold and most recent comps. Try to stay as close to the subject property as possible. I use comps that sold in a 5 block radius around the property. If I can't find enough that are within that range I will expand it to 10 blocks and go out 120-180 days back.
Also, make sure the comps you use are within 300-400 square feet (size of house)of your property, are of similar style, rambler, colonial, two-story...
and within around 15 years of age, if your property was built in 1965, your comps should range from 1950 to 1980 for year built.
If you use this criteria, you will come up with a fairly accurate value.
I hope this helps,
Jim

I did a search on ARV as I think someone else may do a better job of explaining ARV that I can at the moment.

http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/title-searching-and-other...

Basically
1) get all of the info on the property you want to know the value of. (square footage, age, # of bedrooms / # of bathrooms, style of house, neighborhood, amenities (garage, central air, granite countertops, etc.)

2) Have your Realtor pull some Comps of houses sold within the past 3 months. The closer the comp is to your subject property, the better the comp.

Compare the numbers of the Subject House to your comps (make a spreadsheet if you can)

Valid Comps (want a minimum of 3, 5 or 6 should be enough):
Everything the same, sold very recently, obviously a good comp
1) Must be sold within the last 3 months (the more recent, the better, adjust if needed - say 6 months)

2)square footage + or - 20% (a mansion doesn't compare well to an efficiency)

3)age + or - 20 years (a new house should have less problems)

4)# of bed/bath - have these be the same if at all possible

5)style of house - ranch vs split-level vs 2 story, brick vs sided, etc

6)Neighborhood - start with comps within a quarter-mile radius and adjust as needed to get comps (adjust to 1/2 mile radius, for example)

7)Amenities - a two car garage is typically better than a single car garage (or no garage at all)

Divide the sales prices of each property by their square footage of the house. This will give you an average per foot price for the comp. Toss out any average that is extremely high or low. Add up the remaining averages and find their average. This should give you a single, per foot price for your target property. Multiply this average by the square footage of the price. This should give you a good indication on what the *approximate* value of the home.

The better the comps you receive from your Realtor, the more accurate the estimate should be. Adjust your comp requirements a little bit at a time as needed if you're getting too many or too few.

JIM KEEP TALKING WE NEED TO START A PROPERTY TO FIND MONEY TO BUY DEAN BOOK...

Thank you guys I really appreciate it.
JOhn

Offer Formula
Formula:
- Value (Fair Market Value / After Repair Value)
- Minus repair costs
- Minus 6% for Realtor fee
- Minus 3% closing costs
- Minus 1% per month for holding normally 6%.
- Minus 10-15% investor profit
= Equals maximum offer price.
*Offer should start about 10% below max offer price.

Value:
Calculate based on averaging price per square foot of comps. Then multiply avg price per sqft by the sqft of our target property.

Rehab Costs (these are just averages):
Light - $12 x Sqft = paint, carpet, appliances
Medium - $15 x sqft = Everything above + some bathroom rehab, some electrical and plumbing
Heavy - $20 x sqft = The above + Cleaning Mold problems and moving some walls around

Hope this helps........
Shah