Recent New York City real estate sales data has never been easier for home hunters to access. There is quality and timely real estate data on the web, both free and at price. Yes, there is even recent sales data for co-ops in New York City.
Why Real Estate Comps?
What you are really trying to uncover with recent sales data is the market rate in a neighborhood. Is the house you want to buy expensive or is it a great bargain?
Using recent sales data, search for comps or comparable sales data, matching building types in the same neighborhood: condos to condos, two-family homes to two-family homes. Try to get an idea of the current price per square foot by building type (sales price divided by the square footage of living space). Ideally, properties with similar amenities are important, but the real name of the game is location.
Do you really need to know comps? You could trust your instincts or the realtor, but isn’t it worth digging up a little information? A few hours of work could save you $ 10,000 when you’re ready to make an offer on your new home.
A better understanding of the local market could also put you off altogether. Or alert a property that has been repeatedly flipped over in a short period of time. That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it can shed light on a property’s flaws before it’s too late.
Favorite Websites for Recent Sales in New York
Successive Sales Update [NYC.gov – New York Department of Finance]
The parent load of all recent New York sales information, the City Department of Finance’s public records of property sales data through 2003. The problem is the format. You can download by city and year, for example, Queens in 2006, and in Excel or PDF. It is a large file that takes a while even on a fast connection.
Once downloaded, you can search in Excel or Adobe Acrobat by neighborhood, address, sale price, sale date, square footage, year built, or building type. Some data is missing or inconsistent, but you can trust most of it to be solid fact. It is ideal for analyzing each number, but it requires patience and effort to deal with large files and extract data for further exploration.
Data released by NYC Finance is delayed by approximately one month in real time.
Pay sites with detailed information on recent NYC sales
PropertyShark is a great destination for super detailed property information all in one place. They give you the location, size and price of a recent sale, plus the seller’s name, taxes and lien status, reports on the local environment (such as toxicity), and maybe even a photo and the sale information from earlier times. Most importantly, PropertyShark makes comparing apples to apples much easier.
But you have to pay. Registered users get information for free and a whole lot more if you buy a subscription ($ 15- $ 20 / month).
New York newspapers with recent New York sales information
Look in the real estate sections of The New York Times for “Residential Sales in the Region” and the New York Post for “Just Sold! The Latest Information on Recent Sales – In Your Backyard and Beyond ”, regular weekly articles listing some recent sales for each borough.
The good thing about this is that there are more details on the property’s amenities and renovation history that cannot be gleaned from the NYC Finance report data. This is data provided by New York City real estate brokers, not the government. Of course, it’s in the broker’s interest to put their best face forward, so don’t expect a lot of superior repair data on these.
Blogs with recent NYC sale information
Several local real estate sites and blogs distribute recent sales information or at least republish information that they have accessed elsewhere. Try Curbed for Manhattan and any luxury building and Brownstoner for Brooklyn.
The best thing these blogs can give you is reader comments that shed light on a property that appears in recent sales (or is completely inaccurate). What you find on blogging is another piece of the puzzle, or at worst, good fun on those days when the house hunt is driving you crazy.
New York Residential Building Types for Recent Sales Comps
New York City recognizes these eight types of residential buildings:
- Single family houses
- Two family houses
- Three family houses
- Condos – Elevator Apartments
- Condos – Walkup Apartments
- Tax class 1 – Condominiums
- Cooperatives – Elevator Apartments
- Cooperatives – Walkup Apartments
There are more classes for commercial, residential rental, and other miscellaneous uses.
Recent New York Cooperative Sales
Cooperatives are a special case. New York City is the only municipality in the US where this form of ownership is significant. In Manhattan, it is more than half of the individually owned residential apartments.
The owners of the cooperatives do not maintain the deed to their properties, but rather own a part of the corporation that owns the building. Until July 2006, cooperative owners had a good privacy shield. The cooperative’s recent sale information was considered a private transaction and did not appear in public records because it was not “real property.”
A 2006 law opened the curtains and allowed the sun to enter the private world of cooperatives. However, recent sales information released by the City only begins in January 2004. (Some brokers and other specialists maintain private historical records on cooperative sales).
Good luck finding your new home!
