Satisfy your curiosity -- for free
October 28, 2000

If you're about to make an offer on a home, naturally you wonder what others in the area paid. Or maybe you're just the curious type who wants to know what your relatives, neighbors and colleagues paid. There are a couple of Web sites out there that can satisfy your curiosity -- for free -- and save you a trip to your local county records office. Yahoo Real Estate (real estate.yahoo.com) and Domania.com (www.domania.com) are two sites where you can type in an address and usually see what the most recent sales price was for the home, as well as the sale prices and dates of other properties in the surrounding area. Yahoo's Home Values data comes from a company called iPlace, and it covers all 50 states going back about five years. For some areas, Domania.com has data going back to 1987, and it covers all but 17 states. (Data is available for all of California.) Domania also is the engine that runs the Home Price Check feature on Realtor.com. If you are willing to register with Domania, you can get even more information about the homes that sold in a certain neighborhood.