Goddammit!

[kay1864]

Why can't Yahoo figure out what I want? :rant:

I'm TRYING to get a comparison of housing prices. You know, the price of a 3-BR house in various cities.

So I put in "housing price comparison" in Yahoo and I get comparisons between Hotel and Corporate housing, and on-campus housing rates.

Also sites for camera housings.

Also links shopzilla and shopping.com, which I'm pretty sure don't sell houses online.

I try "nationwide housing prices" and I get a buncha articles on the housing bubble.

I check the housing bubble article in Wikipedia, and it has external links for housing comparisons for California, or the Northeast, but none on cities nationwide.

I keep searching, and I finally find a chart that compares median house prices in US cities, but this isn't what I need--because it's *all* houses, from 2-BR cracker boxes to McMansions. It's not apples-to-apples.

I *know* that USA Today did a piece awhile back on the price of a 3-BR house in about 50 US cities, and they got the data from somewhere else. But where?

I tried the HUD site. Gummint agencies have all kinds of data. No dice.

Any suggestions?

[lizziegrace]

1. What about

The National Association of Realtors site or a national realty company, like Century 21. :shrug:

[kay1864]

2. Good suggestion, but...

No nationwide comparisons. Just searchable by each state.

I know this data exists, I just can't find it. Grrr...

[kwassa]

3. there is a tv series on HGTV that shows what $500,000 buys in

different cities around the US. and I can't rememeber the name. It was on last night.

[kay1864]

4. Yep, that's close...

but it's the inverse of what I want, which is the average price for X house in various cities

("X house" being, say, 3BR, 2000 sq ft or whatever)

Like I said, I know this data exists. Just can't find it.

[kwassa]

5. census data, possibly? census.gov

You are in the same problem, though, because housing prices are determined by location, location, location within a particular city.

The Post did a little article a few years back, before the last big inflation spiral, about identical split levels built by the same contractor in two different neighborhoods in the DC 'burbs forty years ago that now had a difference in value of about $100,000. All because of the percieved desirability of the neighborhood.

[kay1864]

6. Ooh, good one!

I'll try that. Thanks! :hi: