A wrong ARV is the most expensive number in this business. Overshoot by ten percent on a $250k resale and you've quietly promised yourself $25k that was never there. So before the tool list, here's the part that matters more than the tool list.
Three tests for any ARV tool
- •1. Closed sales only. Pending and active listings are asking prices — hopes, not evidence. If a tool's "comps" include them, the ARV inherits the seller's optimism.
- •2. Show me the rejects. The comps a tool excluded, and why, tell you more about its judgment than the ones it kept. No reject list, no audit, no trust.
- •3. "Not enough data" must be a possible answer. A tool that always produces a number is a tool that sometimes makes one up. The honest failure mode is admitting the comps are thin.
The tools
An agent's CMA: free, still the gold standard, slow. A good local agent with MLS access will out-comp any algorithm on judgment calls (that busy road, that weird layout). The cost is time and the favor economy: you can't ask for thirty CMAs a week.
ChatARV: the fast comp puller. Address in, AI comps and an ARV out in about a minute, easy to share. Reported pricing runs roughly $19–149 a month (not published, verify). Comps are the whole product; rehab, rent and deal-finding are yours to solve. We wrote a full ChatARV review if you want the long version.
PropStream: the data firehose. Around $99/month as of this writing. Enormous property database, list-building, and comps among many features. Strong when your business is generating lead lists; the ARV workflow is one tool in a crowded shed, and crowded sheds have learning curves.
DealCheck: the per-deal calculator. Roughly $0–35/month. A genuinely good analysis calculator once you have a property and your own numbers to feed it. Comps and estimates are attached, but the core is the calculator, not the evidence.
OnOffDeals: ours, bias declared. We built the ARV the way test #1–3 demand, because we got burned by tools that didn't: closed sales only, matched on type, beds, baths and size; every comp listed as used or rejected with the reason; and "insufficient comps" as an honest answer. Then the rest of the underwrite is attached (rehab budget, HUD rent, cash flow, itemized flip costs) because an ARV alone never bought anyone a house. Start free with a first week on us; plans are $29–69/mo, printed publicly.
Our take
If you need one-off values in random markets, a fast comp puller plus a skeptical eye works. If you underwrite deals every week in any US market, we built OnOffDeals for exactly that — and whichever tool you pick, run the three tests on it first. Including ours.
Underwrite your next deal in about a minute
ARV from real closed sales, a rehab budget that reads the listing, HUD rent, cash flow and flip profit after every cost, with every comp shown, used or rejected. Start free. Your first week is on us.
Try OnOffDeals free