local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
Local alternative brokerage Surefield added another slick new tool to their arsenal this week: A map-based home pricing tool that they are calling Pricepoint. Together with their flagship 3D home tour technology (previously spotlighted here), this new offering strengthens Surefield’s focus on home sellers.
The tool offers an interactive, transparent alternative to Zillow’s black box “Zestimates,” and is touted by Surefield as “the most accurate and reliable way to price a home.”
by Flickr user woodleywonderworks The perpetual motto of real estate salespeople that “it’s a great time to buy” is still a load of nonsense. It’s only a great time to buy when your personal finances, your stage in life, and the right home at the right price all come together at the same time. Granted,…
Our final method for determining whether or not a home is a good deal is to compare the current asking price to the historic sale prices of the same home during pre-bubble years. The simplest method is to find the oldest sale record available for the home and compare the total percentage gain from that…
Unfortunately when you’re looking at single-family homes, it can be difficult to get an accurate read on what people in the neighborhood are currently paying in rent. However, studying asking rents in the rental section of Craigslist is the next best thing, and it is definitely better than nothing. photo by The Tim Do a…
The art of analyzing a home’s “comps”—once the exclusive domain of real estate agents and appraisers—is now open to everyone thanks to sites like Zillow and Redfin that display detailed data on sold homes. The basic process is simple: Make a list of recently sold (within the last 3 months, ideally) homes similar to the…