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About once a month, I receive an e-newsletter from a real estate agent that shows me "real estate stats" as they call them. These newsletters include tables of data for the entire state and then broken down by county showing: Pended Single Family and Condominium Sales; Active Listings-Inventory; and Average Sales Price for the current month and one year prior.
Does anyone know if there is a source for this sort of info that I, as a consumer, can access directly? If anyone has a link, I'd sure appreciate having it.
OP--Your agent should be able to provide it to you. They can pull the data from the MLS pretty quickly and include data broken down by cities, zip codes, etc. I used to pull that kind of data together for IN clients all the time. I don't recall if the average sales price data was available. I think I had to enter it into an Excel document which was more time consuming, but it's been a few years.
You would have to use several public sources to compile it yourself.
About once a month, I receive an e-newsletter from a real estate agent that shows me "real estate stats" as they call them. These newsletters include tables of data for the entire state and then broken down by county showing: Pended Single Family and Condominium Sales; Active Listings-Inventory; and Average Sales Price for the current month and one year prior.
Does anyone know if there is a source for this sort of info that I, as a consumer, can access directly? If anyone has a link, I'd sure appreciate having it.
In my opinion, a lot of this data which contains AVERAGES for an entire county or entire MLS service is of little value, or, even worse, MISLEADING information for the typical consumer. It can be misleading for a variety of reasons which may not be clear to the typical consumer.
Your best bet, IMO, is to narrow down your search to areas or neighborhoods that you think you might be interested in and then look online at the sales prices and house data at the County Assessor's Office. You can also go to realtor.com or zillow.com and search asking prices and house data in the particular areas you think you might be interested in. You can also get SOLD data from these same sites. You just have to learn how to narrow down your search to the areas you are interested in so that you won't get misleading info from other areas.
Oh, and you don't even need a realtor to do this searching if you're willing to do it yourself which is fairly easy, IMO.
In my opinion, a lot of this data which contains AVERAGES for an entire county or entire MLS service is of little value, or, even worse, MISLEADING information for the typical consumer. It can be misleading for a variety of reasons which may not be clear to the typical consumer.
100% agree! That's pretty much why I asked my original question. I'd like to get my hands on the data so I can draw my own conclusions, not just take someone else's marketing material at face value.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chas863
Your best bet, IMO, is to narrow down your search to areas or neighborhoods that you think you might be interested in and then look online at the sales prices and house data at the County Assessor's Office. You can also go to realtor.com or zillow.com and search asking prices and house data in the particular areas you think you might be interested in. You can also get SOLD data from these same sites. You just have to learn how to narrow down your search to the areas you are interested in so that you won't get misleading info from other areas.
Oh, and you don't even need a realtor to do this searching if you're willing to do it yourself which is fairly easy, IMO.
Yep, this is exactly what I've been doing. It's time-consuming and tedious, but since I'm a spreadsheet person, it can be done.
About once a month, I receive an e-newsletter from a real estate agent that shows me "real estate stats" as they call them. These newsletters include tables of data for the entire state and then broken down by county showing: Pended Single Family and Condominium Sales; Active Listings-Inventory; and Average Sales Price for the current month and one year prior.
Does anyone know if there is a source for this sort of info that I, as a consumer, can access directly? If anyone has a link, I'd sure appreciate having it.
If your local MLS allows you to buy into their services, try that. Most of that data is MLS data. Also, county records may contain some of the data you're looking for. Best to rely on a good agent that studies the market and have a working relationship. I also send out a monthly market report to my clients that contains a lot of data for them. It's part of what we do as Realtors.
In my opinion, a lot of this data which contains AVERAGES for an entire county or entire MLS service is of little value, or, even worse, MISLEADING information for the typical consumer. It can be misleading for a variety of reasons which may not be clear to the typical consumer.
Your best bet, IMO, is to narrow down your search to areas or neighborhoods that you think you might be interested in and then look online at the sales prices and house data at the County Assessor's Office. You can also go to realtor.com or zillow.com and search asking prices and house data in the particular areas you think you might be interested in. You can also get SOLD data from these same sites. You just have to learn how to narrow down your search to the areas you are interested in so that you won't get misleading info from other areas.
Oh, and you don't even need a realtor to do this searching if you're willing to do it yourself which is fairly easy, IMO.
If your realtor is sending you averages for an entire county and you feel that's misleading, have them drill down for you. I can send you county or market averages, or I can tell you what's sold on a particular street in the past 20 years. Our reporting can be as accurate as you want it to be. I have investors that only buy in one or two areas, best believe that's the only two areas I send them data on.
Problem with Zillow is that it's wrong about 1/3 of the time. Ever seen a waterfront home valued at 2.5 million on Zillow only to drive by the property and it be a vacant lot? Happens all the time. Zillow is an advertising platform designed to gather customer data to sell to real estate agents. Keep that in mind. They are not empowering you to do your own research, they are gathering your data to sell as a lead to an agent.
They know nothing about your market or what's going on in the city you live in.
Using the word "misleading" shows your sentiment of distrust of real estate agents, which I get, we are towards the bottom on the trust scale. A lot of that is due to the low entry point of education in our industry and lazy agents. But, a Realtor, a good professional Realtor, would always be a better option for market knowledge to rely on compared to an advertising platform like Zillow or Realtor.com
If your realtor is sending you averages for an entire county and you feel that's misleading, have them drill down for you. I can send you county or market averages, or I can tell you what's sold on a particular street in the past 20 years. Our reporting can be as accurate as you want it to be. I have investors that only buy in one or two areas, best believe that's the only two areas I send them data on.
Problem with Zillow is that it's wrong about 1/3 of the time. Ever seen a waterfront home valued at 2.5 million on Zillow only to drive by the property and it be a vacant lot? Happens all the time. Zillow is an advertising platform designed to gather customer data to sell to real estate agents. Keep that in mind. They are not empowering you to do your own research, they are gathering your data to sell as a lead to an agent.
They know nothing about your market or what's going on in the city you live in.
Using the word "misleading" shows your sentiment of distrust of real estate agents, which I get, we are towards the bottom on the trust scale. A lot of that is due to the low entry point of education in our industry and lazy agents. But, a Realtor, a good professional Realtor, would always be a better option for market knowledge to rely on compared to an advertising platform like Zillow or Realtor.com
No, the word "misleading" refers to information/data which may not be applicable to what the OP is looking for. You also seem to have ignored my main advice which was to look online at the County Assessor's Office.
While it's true that a realtor COULD look up the information, it's actually easier for the OP to look it up himself. Between the time a person starts looking for a home and finally ends up buying one, they may change their mind a dozen or more times about the area they're looking in, what features they want, what price range they want and other stuff like that. I'd hate to have to call a realtor and take their time every time I thought of something different I wanted to consider. Not only could it be wasting the realtor's time, but I might have to wait a couple of days each time to get an answer when, if I looked it up myself, I'd have my answer in 15 minutes or less.
I'm just someone who likes to do things for myself when possible and when practical. That way I know how the information was obtained and can change my screening criteria in an instant if I desire rather than having to rely on someone else to search for me. Besides, many realtors are going to farm this grunt work out to a low-paid assistant which is yet another reason I'd rather do it myself. While you may have the time and inclination to spend countless hours poring over courthouse records/data and weeding out the undesirable stuff, many realtors don't.
No, the word "misleading" refers to information/data which may not be applicable to what the OP is looking for. You also seem to have ignored my main advice which was to look online at the County Assessor's Office.
While it's true that a realtor COULD look up the information, it's actually easier for the OP to look it up himself. Between the time a person starts looking for a home and finally ends up buying one, they may change their mind a dozen or more times about the area they're looking in, what features they want, what price range they want and other stuff like that. I'd hate to have to call a realtor and take their time every time I thought of something different I wanted to consider. Not only could it be wasting the realtor's time, but I might have to wait a couple of days each time to get an answer when, if I looked it up myself, I'd have my answer in 15 minutes or less.
I'm just someone who likes to do things for myself when possible and when practical. That way I know how the information was obtained and can change my screening criteria in an instant if I desire rather than having to rely on someone else to search for me. Besides, many realtors are going to farm this grunt work out to a low-paid assistant which is yet another reason I'd rather do it myself. While you may have the time and inclination to spend countless hours poring over courthouse records/data and weeding out the undesirable stuff, many realtors don't.
You're right, we've leveraged that information to our MLS. They have sales transaction records going back at least 25 years. They also have all tax records on any property in the state, and a wealth of other knowledge based statistics, like FEMA maps, wind zone records, elevation certs, reverse prospecting tools etc. If you, as a client, requested 5 different communities to search in, it takes me about 45 seconds to set you up so that you can research the data to your heart's content. Something that county records and Zillow (also county records data) are only showing you a portion of.
I say if you enjoy doing your own searches, great! Just don't miss 75% of the data by only relying on tax records. That's my only suggestion.
I run a real estate team, have buyer's agents that work with me, and either myself or my agents do all the research on our client's wish lists. I take pride in the fact that I know my market better than you do, because frankly, it's how I get paid...
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