January 2000
Home Truths
What's Happening to prices in your neighborhood?
By Joan Goldwasser

Curious about the price your neighbor paid for the house down the block? Sure you are, but you wouldn't be so gauche as to ask.

Now you don't have to. There's a good chance you can get the magic number on the Internet. Two Web sites -- iOwn.com and Home Price Check -- offer an attic full of home-price data at the click of a mouse. And they're both free.

IOwn, an online mortgage lender located in San Francisco, provides prices for home sales in 31 states over the past 18 months. In addition to letting you search for a specific address, you can check a street map of a neighborhood you're interested in that shows all the houses sold within a radius of ten miles of the address you specify.

Inpho, the Cambridge, Mass., company that gathers and posts data at Home Price Check, claims it provides sales prices for more than 70% of the homes in the U.S., including those in the 50 largest metropolitan areas. Officials say they soon expect to cover 85% of sales. A price is usually posted within four to six weeks after the deal closes.

At either Web site, once you've done a search, you can request an e-mail alert about future sales within the same area.

Beyond idle curiosity -- okay, okay, Boston Red Sox superstar shortstop Nomar Garciaparra paid $705,000 for his new home in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston last year -- iOwn and Home Price Check can be a good starting point if you're in the market to buy or sell a house. IOwn's map feature provides a quick snapshot of price ranges in a specific neighborhood.

Home Price Check will soon include details taken from property-tax records including the lot size, square footage of the house, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the assessed value and current tax bill. With such data online, it will be easier to decide whether to appeal your property-tax assessment.