Short answer: You cannot find such a property. You must find comparable properties - "comps" for short - that are reasonably similar to the one you want to buy or to sell. To do that, you need a list of the core qualities of your property, so you can find other properties with very similar core qualities. Those differ among types of property. For a residence, it might be the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, number of stories, type of exterior siding, age of the house, and general quality of the neighborhood.
You find those properties by reading the real estate magazines for your area, searching the online MLS databases, and by going around neighborhoods. First attention should be given to those properties with "Sold" signs. The selling price is the best indication of value, not the asking price.
Before a property sells, you know only the asking price. Real estate still being offered for sale will give you clues about neighborhoods to research. Houses within a neighborhood are usually very similar to each other. If a house is for sale, look for nearby houses that sold in the last two years.
Your local real estate tax assessor usually keeps track of the sales price of properties. Many states require people to declare the purchase price when they record their deeds. That information is then given to the tax assessor, or it might also be available to the public from the recorder of deeds.
Call or visit those two offices for your county or parish and ask them how the public can access that information. Generally, it is available online and at terminals in the government office.
Finding information about sales prices for business properties is more difficult than for homes and condos because there is usually no centralized location for sales information. In fact, you will often not even see a "For Sale" sign on property that is offered to the market because the owners are afraid their current or potential customers might misinterpret it and think they are going out of business.
You will need to be very attentive to your marketplace in order to discover recent sales of business properties. Some local weekly business journals list all recent commercial real estate sales. You might be able to monitor this on your tax assessor's website, if you can do a search on non-homestead property.
This is property that is not owner-occupied, so the owner did not declare a homestead exemption that would reduce his or her taxes. Talk to real estate professionals and lenders to keep track of what is for sale and what has sold recently. When driving around, look for signs of change. A new business at an existing location means a new tenant or a new owner. Investigate further.
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