Finding the price of houses?

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

Anyone know of a way online to quickly find out the price of various houses that are for sale around here? I heard there was some sort of database - but maybe that is realtors only?

Comments

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, you should be able to find somerville property or tax assessors site, this has the values and the last sales price of a house, along with an old picture.. from this site (http://indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/assessors.html) you can find Somerville in vissionappraisal.com (http://www.visionappraisal.com/databases/mass/index.htm)

This site (http://www.searchsystems.net/) use to be great and free! You could find everything from marriage records, unclaimed property sites and tons of other variuos and free public records sites from this central site. But now it looks like you need to pay to use it. Damn. Does anyone know of another great "Public Records" database that is free? I thought there were more before but have not used any in a while.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I would swear up and down that I last found this sort of info via the city's own homepage, but I can't seem to figure out how to find it now, so I may have some bits of different memories mixed up.

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

There was probably was a link from there too. But your post jogged my memory too. there is also a site called: http://www.zillow.com/

Zillow At a time when there is lots of talk about the housing market slowing down, you can calculate the value of your own property, see how it compares to others, find a house, and more at this site.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I second the rec for realtor.com (which is run by the National Association of Realtors, not any particular brokerage) as well as for newenglandmoves.com (Coldwell Banker, where I work), both of which will allow you to search the MLS for information on homes for sale.

Note that while Zillow is useful, it often contains inaccurate data (I have no idea why), so don't assume too much based on the info there. I've had some fun adventures with clients armed with bad Zillow data on particular properties.

(obDisclosure: Yes, I'm one of Them now. Feel free to drop me a line if you want more info.)