Help with Property Shark's comparables
I subscribed to Property Shark to find out about comparables and all the other things you want to know when you’re looking to buy a house. I’ve been looking at properties for at least 6 months now and I find it hard to believe the comparable prices that are listed on Property Shark. I thought…
I subscribed to Property Shark to find out about comparables and all the other things you want to know when you’re looking to buy a house. I’ve been looking at properties for at least 6 months now and I find it hard to believe the comparable prices that are listed on Property Shark.
I thought I was priced out of Bed Stuy, but according to PS properties in the area are going for under 700K (like by a lot) – is that right?! Am I not using the tool right? I keep getting outbid on houses in the 800K range, but that’s not being reflected on the comparables search.
How do I get good info?
One cool thing you can do on propertyshark.com is remove properties from the comps result list if they seem like non market sales (between family members, etc). You can also now make notes right on the properties so if you go by a place and see the roof is missing, well then you can make a note on that and get it out of your list.
Here you go: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/property/property_val_sales.shtml
8:50 – do you have a link to this recent sales section on the D of F site?
I agree with the poster above. You may be seeing properties in a lower range, but for all you know, they could be in horrible shape. As much as I dislike brokers in general, sometimes it does help to talk to them and get the inside scoop. You can also begin scoping out houses in the area (open houses, etc.) and then tracking them on property shark to see the sale price after they close (it takes a few months, but typical house searches can take that long). I use this approach, and it has definitely worked for me. Good luck.
I understand that the Dept of Finance site has a new recent sales section.
Just because you see something called a “comp” doesn’t mean it really is a good comp for the kind of property you are looking for. Not only are the above posters correct about relatives, and other not-arm’s-length-transactions…but also just info on the site has nothing at all to do with condition. There are a lot of houses that are horribly run down, structurally challenged, not to mention just plain outdated or ugly. The raw data is virtually useless unless you have more information to add to it. You should ask the real estate agents for details on what has sold and at what price. If you don’t trust the listing agents then go find yourself a buyer’s agent that you like instead.
I have never had the site stop functioning, perhaps there is a problem on your PC. And I use it every day.. I understand if people say the info is wrong – it happens – but pretty rarely IMO.
It is also clearly being improved at a steady pace.
Whether the subscription services are worth it I couldn’t tell you, I think they are grasping to charge for such things as FAR and Photos, but thats just me.
Personally I find Property Shark very promising–and very frustrating. Bad info, missing info, and very poor functionality. Seems every time I start looking at a property, after about three clicks the site stops functioning and sticks on one part of the report, refusing to let me go back to pages I had already viewed. I don’t trust anything I find there; just a tool.
There can be many reasons for this.
1st, the bigger brokerages are usually going to carry the nicer inventory, dig a little deeper in your searching and you should find some cheaper properties although they many not be in as good condition.
2nd, as AnnaBee mentioned, you will see sales that are between relatives or sometime one person buying out another person’s interest. Look carefully at the buyer and seller including the listed addresses to eliminate those sales.
3rd, many properties change hands in off market transactions. All those people that don’t go through brokers, sell quickly to investors, sell through word of mouth, banks selling foreclosed properties, etc. These listing are tougher to find but they do exist.
The more work you can do the better a deal you can get. One tool that you have with property shark that may be useful is the list generator. You can specify a particular location, property type, etc. and get a list of all the owners of properties that meet your search. Put together a nice letter stating that you are looking to buy a home for yourself and do a mailing, you may find one of these deals.