If you want to find out whether real estate prices are decreasing or increasing in any particular market or you are wondering whether there are published price indices for property markets, know that all the data exists. However, the data is usually in raw form and somewhat difficult to find. Yet, you can definitely piece together this information. Let’s get you started.
Start by reading the papers, both local and national. The local papers will give you an overview of what is happening in the area you are interested in and the national paper will put this into context. Start today and read for several months. Consider it as an educational course in the real estate markets, which means it is a project that develops.
This first suggestion may sound labor-intensive, so you could instead call on real estate professionals to help you get and analyze the data you need to understand the bigger picture.
While you could calculate prices yourself, you would still have either to collect the data or have someone supply it to you. Be mindful and only call a real estate professional for help with this if you are serious about buying and owning property as nobody likes working for free.
Another option might be to subscribe to MLS-like systems that aggregate data. These are paid services you can locate on-line. However, the data will require context and that brings us back to educating yourself.
You might also wonder whether sites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and so on are helpful here. All of these sites aggregate real estate data but much of it is outdated and even obsolete. That is because only the MLS has to true data and it is proprietary. Consider such sites marketing platforms only.
In summary, all the data is available but both time-intensive and labor-intensive to aggregate. The best option might be to rely on professionals and professional data sources and spend your time evaluating the data.
