I agree with sd, the raw data from websites is a mess. One big problem is they all count repos back to the bank as a sale, that isn’t a true market indicator and it can be a large chunk of the sales. Either get a realtor or study your area and make frequent visits, I found drinking with realtors and picking up the tab dislodged some info but each sale has a story. Some unusually low ones were inside rigged sales or the place was destroyed inside. redfin runs a few weeks behind but you get into the neighborhood pages by zip code and just pick the tab for recent sales, or have them mapped. Zillow blows, I don’t even check it anymore, redfin imports zillow’s only good info anyway. Your best bet is to visit every open house by driving the area on weekends, peeking through the windows on all listed vacants, talking to neighbors and talking to realtors, mix it altogether and you get an idea.
Once you get a good feel for the comps it helps you weed out uninformed realtors, it gives you ammunition to question them on it and if you see that they only show the three highest comps they are snowing you, only the three lowest, same deal. The best are those who will say “this one sold for x, but it was thrashed and had mold issues, this one sold for x but it had 100k in backyard landscaping” if you ended up telling them that info and you get the deer in headlights look, lose their business card.
