CondoScores Value Opinions: what they are, and what they are not

Published by the CondoScores team at RentSpire · Every claim below links to the primary statute, rule, or file it comes from.

What a Value Opinion is

A CondoScores Value Opinion is a consumer-facing, informational, computer-generated estimate of what a condo unit might sell for, built exclusively from government records: recorded deeds and sale files, county tax rolls, FEMA flood maps, FHFA house-price indexes, and Florida's Department of Revenue property data files. No listing-site data, no data brokers, no hidden model: the comparable sales behind every figure are shown on the page, each with its deed book/page or instrument number.

What it is not

• It is not an appraisal. The Appraisal Standards Board's own guidance states an AVM's output "is not, by itself, an appraisal." Florida law draws the same line: Fla. Stat. §475.611(3) provides a value opinion "may not be referred to or construed as an appraisal."
• It is not a broker price opinion. Federal law defines a BPO as an estimate "prepared by a real estate broker, agent, or sales person" and expressly says it "does not include an automated valuation model" (12 U.S.C. §3355(b)). Illinois (225 ILCS 458/5-5(h): the Appraiser Act "does not apply to the procurement of an automated valuation model") and Minnesota (Minn. Stat. §82.55 subd. 1b) codify the same AVM/BPO boundary.
• It is not a "covered AVM" under the 2024 interagency quality-control rule. That rule applies only to AVMs used by mortgage originators and secondary-market issuers in credit decisions (89 FR 64538). CondoScores originates no credit. We voluntarily follow the rule's five principles as internal QA policy anyway.
• It may not be used as the primary basis for a mortgage credit decision. Full stop — the disclaimer on every report says so (Minn. Stat. §82B.035 subd. 1a imposes the same restriction on BPOs).

The disclaimer on every report

How the number is made: a comp grid, not a black box

The method adapts the comparability discipline HUD requires of housing authorities in 24 CFR §982.507(b) — documented comparables, line-item adjustments, no hidden weighting — onto condo sales:

• Comp pool: arm's-length recorded sales in the same building first; only if fewer than 3 exist in the trailing 24 months does the pool widen to the surrounding submarket. Family transfers, foreclosures, and quitclaims are excluded.
• Adjustments carry a dollar figure only when the data supports one (e.g., $/sq ft from the comp's own recorded price and tax-roll living area). Where in-building paired sales don't exist — floor, view, waterfront — the line ships as a labeled flag, never a plug number.
• A range, never a point. The reconciled output is the 25th–75th percentile of adjusted comp prices. Single-dollar precision is false precision.
• Full audit trail. Every comp row expands to parcel/folio, deed book-page or instrument, sale date, recorded price, each adjustment and its one-line justification.

Confidence grades (published formula)

Below Grade C's floor we show no estimate at all — you'll see the recorded sales we hold and an honest "insufficient data" note instead. We think a missing number beats a made-up one.

Accuracy claims policy

We never publish an accuracy statistic unless it is computed by us on our own historical estimates against actual recorded deed prices, refreshed on a stated cadence, and shown with its denominator and vintage on the same page. This follows the CFPB's warning that algorithmic valuations are not automatically unbiased (CFPB, Feb. 2022).

Rollout status

Building pages already show recorded sales (deed prices, dates, official record numbers) as county sale files are ingested, starting with Florida's DOR Sale Data Files. The adjusted Value Opinion range ships per county once tax-roll living-area data is layered in — and until then, no estimate is displayed. Where records are thin, pages say so plainly.