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Posts Tagged ‘average price per square foot’

[NeighborhoodX] With Data As A Commodity, Interpretation Becomes The Differentiator

March 19, 2017 | 2:48 pm | | Columns |

My friend and colleague Constantine Valhouli, founder of NeighborhoodX pens an excellent piece on how the analytics that can be derived from raw data separates seemingly similar real estate resources. And he loves price per square foot. I serve as an advisor to his firm as well as a co-consumer of caffeine whenever possible. He may periodically drop in here on Matrix with some insights derived from his neighborhood analytics.

-Jonathan J. Miller


With Data As A Commodity, Interpretation Becomes The Differentiator

by Constantine Valhouli

When data becomes a commodity, context, and analysis for that data become a critical point of differentiation. This is particularly true for real estate data.

The major real estate portals active in New York City – Realtor, StreetEasy, Trulia, and Zillow – are all relying on the same underlying data: listings from real estate brokerage firms, multiple listing systems and public record. As a result, what differentiates one portal from another is the user experience. This UX is a combination of the (hopefully) intuitive site navigation and the contextual information that helps users make more informed decisions about the various listings.

Those three factors – listings, navigation, and contextual information – come together in the search functions on a real estate portal.

Why? Even as the web has streamlined the housing search, it remains cumbersome. We’ve previously analyzed how the same search on different portals will yield different number of listings for the same neighborhood (Austin, Boston, NYC) – which means that buyers will have to duplicate their search across several portals to be sure they are finding all the relevant properties. Other times, the listings aren’t actually in the neighborhood they claim to be. All of this puts the burden of analysis onto the site user.

The real estate search recently became even more cumbersome and opaque. The major real estate portals which are active in New York City no longer have an option to sort properties by price per square foot.

On these portals, users can search by most or least expensive, by largest or smallest, or by newest – but these metrics are not as useful as looking at price per square foot. Sometimes a large property that appears expensive can be a bargain on a per-square-foot basis. Other times, some of the least expensive properties in a neighborhood are asking the highest prices per square foot for that neighborhood. The ability to sort listings by price per square foot is a minor feature, and relatively easy to implement. But the omission speaks volumes. Without this option, it is no longer possible for consumers to quickly sort properties to get a better sense the price/sq.ft. range in a neighborhood. Or to know whether a particular property is asking too much (or is a relative bargain) compared to the neighborhood. This also means that it is harder for sellers to value their property accurately.

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[Three Cents Worth #287 NY] Tracking New York Rents and Asking Prices Over a Century

June 3, 2015 | 6:04 pm | | Charts |

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capital of the world…and I’m here to take measurements.

Check out my 3CW column on @CurbedNY:

Back in 2011, I embarked on a fun research project for Douglas Elliman’s 100th anniversary, in which I traced how sales prices and rents changed since the 1910s. I explain in detail how I did the research here, but I ended up with a very loose proxy to represent price per square foot for sales and average monthly rents during each decade…

2015-6-1curbed

Here are some other ways to view the 100 year trend based on feedback from readers.

2015-6-1curbedDoD

2015-6-1curbedCPIDoD

2015-6-1curbedCPI

[click to expand charts]


My latest Three Cents Worth column: Three Cents Worth: Tracking New York Rents and Asking Prices Over a Century [Curbed]

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed NY

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed DC

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Miami

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Hamptons

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed LA

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Ski

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