What are sold comps?
Sold comps are recently completed sales of the same or similar item — like eBay sold listings — used to estimate what something actually resells for. The rule that matters: always price off sold comps, never current asking prices.
Why asking prices lie
An asking price is what a seller hopes to get; a sold comp is what a buyer actually paid. Overpriced and unsold listings sit on a marketplace forever, dragging the visible "prices" upward, so if you value resale off asking prices you'll consistently overestimate — and overbid. Sold comps cut through that: they're demand, not hope.
Why they're the anchor of a flip
Your profit gap is real resale minus landed cost. Sold comps are how you get the "real resale" half honest. This is exactly why a valuation built on past auction prices misleads — it measures what people paid to acquire, not what the item resells for. Why matched sold comps beat AI guesses →
Related terms
Landed cost · Profit gap · Hammer price · Full glossary
GavelGap pulls real eBay sold comps for the item you're viewing and computes the resale-vs-landed-cost gap automatically, right in the GovDeals sidebar.
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