Check 1 One honest price from your sold comps
Buyer-paid totals of sold listings — same thing, same condition, complete. Cross off bundles, wrong variants, asking prices, and sold rows that hid a Best Offer (the figure on screen isn't what the buyer paid) first.
Your price
Your comps, the middle, and the price you'll plan on
Each dot is one sold comp. The solid line is the median — one lucky high sale can't drag it. The dashed line is the conservative price, rounded down to the nearest $5. Hover a dot for its price, or open the table under the chart for every comp.
Check 2 Does it actually move?
Search a specific item the way buyers type it ("Foley food mill"), not a broad category.
The shape
Waiting versus sold
A rough, conservative read, not a precise rate: sold at least as many as are listed = it moves; three or more listed for every one sold = slow; in between = maybe; fewer than about 20 sold = too thin to have a shape.
Reading the sold screen down to one honest price is chapter 3 of Reselling — Basics → · checking a whole category before you commit to it is chapter 3 of Reselling — Intermediate →
How to read it Asking prices are hopes; sold prices are facts
Active listings tell you what sellers hope to get. Sold listings tell you what buyers actually paid. The median of a handful of genuinely matching sales — rounded down, so the price you plan on is one you'll probably beat — is the most honest single number a seller can carry into a store.
A worked example
Five matching sold comps: $38, $41, $44, $46 and $58. The median is $44 — the $58 outlier doesn't move it — and rounded down to a clean price it's $40. With only two comps, the scorecard says walk: two sales are a coincidence, not a market. For the demand check, 180 listed against 220 sold in about ninety days moves; 400 listed against 60 sold — nearly seven waiting for every one that sells — is slow.
Common questions
Why round down?
So the plan has room in it. Everything after this — the fee, the postage, the most you can pay — is built on this number; building on an optimistic one is how a good-looking flip loses money.
Why is the demand check "rough"?
Because search counts are messy and the sold filter only reaches back about ninety days. It's a shape you read in a minute in an aisle, not a rate to two decimal places — and a "maybe" is fine: that's what a short test is for.
The price check is chapter 3 of Reselling — Basics; the demand check is chapter 3 of Reselling — Intermediate.
See the Reselling series →