The Somerville News attributed the figure to the city assessors, so as far as setting the tax rate, that's the only important figure.
The Warren Group, who publish Banker & Tradesman, is the most authoritative source for Mass home sales data. I just checked their figures and they show about a 6% decline on all sales through October. The number is -13% for single-family homes and -2% for condos.
Of course, sales data do not necessarily reflect the overall change to the tax base, unless you assume that one year's sales are perfectly representative of the overall housing stock. This could explain the discrepancy between sales figures and the city assessor's figures.
In my experience, Zillow has been a random-number generator. Way too much GIGO.
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Date: 2008-12-08 04:50 am (UTC)The Warren Group, who publish Banker & Tradesman, is the most authoritative source for Mass home sales data. I just checked their figures and they show about a 6% decline on all sales through October. The number is -13% for single-family homes and -2% for condos.
Of course, sales data do not necessarily reflect the overall change to the tax base, unless you assume that one year's sales are perfectly representative of the overall housing stock. This could explain the discrepancy between sales figures and the city assessor's figures.
In my experience, Zillow has been a random-number generator. Way too much GIGO.