How to Find Recently Sold Homes

Research home sales before buying a new home.

Whether you are looking to buy a new home or rental property or considering selling, understanding the housing market helps put you in a better position to make the big decision. Evaluating the recent home sales of an area gives you enough information to know the approximate value of another home in the neighborhood. Home sales are a public record and many websites and newspapers collect this information making it easily assessable to anyone.

Things You'll Need

• City name
• Address
• Zip code

Instructions

1. Check the area's local newspaper on a weekly basis for recently sold homes listings. Many major and local papers list the homes sold weekly. You may find this information in the business or real estate section in the weekend edition. Some newspapers also have this information on its website.

2. Use Zillow.com to search your neighborhood or region of interest. On the main page of Zillow, you enter the address, zip or city and get an aerial map of the home sales results. Zoom in to click on individual houses to find out the last sale date, Zillow's current value estimate and if the house is currently up for sale. To get this information, hold your cursor over a house and click on the house address in the box that pops up.

3. Use Trulia.com, which works in much the same way Zillow does, but with a slightly different format. On Trulia you also enter an address, zip code or city name. This generates a list and map to search through. Click on a home address to get the last sell dates and the amount the house sold for.

References

• San Jose Mercury News: Real Estate News
• Sacramento Bee: Home Sales Database
• Zillow
• Trulia