Caesar,
You can call just about any Realtor and she will usually give you comps on a house or two for free. If you don't have a Realtor working as part of your power team, you can find Realtors who specialize in your area by Googling "Realtor" + "Your Neighborhood's Name", going to Realtor.com, driving your neighborhood and looking for houses with For Sale signs and calling the listing agent, or coming to any REIClub meeting (there will almost always be a few in attendance there). If you still can't find one, email me (greg at ridglea dot com) and I'll put in touch with some good ones.
Also, depending on the particular neighborhood you live in, TAD.org / DallasCAD.org usually have very accurate estimations on a property's value. They get bad raps on investment boards and at REIA meetings b/c occasionally (rarely) they are a little off - like less than 5% (not very often in most neighborhoods with significant home sales volume or by much value), and once in a blue moon a home's value will be way off (OK old-time investors FLAME AWAY!). But those are the exceptions rather than the rule.
If you need REALLY accurate #s (like to the dollar) I suggest you either hire a full-time appraiser WHO IS FAMILIAR WITH YOUR AREA, or get a SEASONED investor to run comps for you.
Regardless of who you use, 1) run your comps by hand (computer-generated CMAs are fast, but stupid), 2) compare apples-to-apples, make sure the person running your comps has YOUR needs in mind and not theirs and stay tight in your search area (usually only the same MAPSCO grid square or those that touch yours).
If you don't know how to run comps the way banks do, contact me and I'l send you a copy of manual I wrote for my investor students on exactly the steps to take to come up with the same numbers lending underwriters use/will accept. It won't do you any good to use methodologies that lenders won't accept.
Let me know what else I can do to help you grow your business!
-Greg Wilson
The REI Mentor
