How would I go about finding out the approximate value of a house in a certain neighborhood or community many years ago?

In West Virginia, our property tax records are online, but I’m certain they don’t go back that far. I’d guess your best bet is calling the property tax people in the area and see what they can find (or suggest).

Maybe a local estate agent’s office could help you out. One that’s been around long enough.

Or you could go very organic and ask someone old enough to be around at that time and ask them what property prices were like.

Lurve for “organic,” @sarahhhhh. I was around at that time. My brother and I differ in our recollection by about $20k. I think he is dead wrong—the figure he remembers would have paid for a mansion, not a very modest dwelling on a perfectly ordinary suburban street. I’d like to win this one.

I believe if you put the address into Zillow.com it will show the original purchase price.

@jeruba, Deeds reference each other, so you can trace them back to the one your parents had, or rather find their deed (a paper trail of sorts). Problem is the deed may or may not reference the actual price paid. Register of deeds likely has online research tools as well. But if there have been a few owners since, start with the tax assessor to reference the current deed. That’s at least how it would work in the area I am in right now. Those county offices may have different names but should be the same types.

If self research doesn’t work go to these municipal departments and ask your same question.

Google “property assessor x county.” Or, sometimes it is property appraiser, and look for the government site. You should be able to search properties by address. Once the address is found you should be able to click on all sales information.

If it does not come up in your google search, because it is flooded with appraisers who are advertising their service rather than the government site, go to your state’s website and search property taxes or something similar.

This might be the site? http://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/

There is also this site http://www.suffolkdeeds.com/ But in every state I have lived in I would not look up the deed I would search the property records for sales data.

Go to the library. They probably have newspapers on microfiche from that era. And if you don’t live near the library they will probably help you over the phone. I ♥ librarians..

There seem to be a fair number of real estate services that would be happy to sell you that information, but if you’re going back very far in history (more than a decade or so) then I wonder how well that information would have been collected into an electronic database, even if you were willing to pay for it.

Maybe the best way would be to look at listings in newspapers of the period to get some comps that way.

@johnpowell beat me to it. I’d look at real estate ads from the month when they bought the house.

$20,000 discrepancy in 1958 is like a million dollar difference in 2011 terms (at least here in Northern California). My father bought a brand new house in Harrison, New York in 1963 for $36,000.

@JLeslie tax records vs deeds depends. It depends how many owners since. If the family still owns the property it will be easy. The tax records usually only go back three transactions. So if not in tax records and the deed would be the sure source. If the price is not listed on the deed, than further research would be needed to back into the price based on what transfer tax was paid. You would need to know the rate at that time and for that area. @Jeruba if you were determined enough, I would go down to the tax office and explain what you need and let them help. Might be easier than fishing around on the internet.

@JLeslie approach is the first shot at it. Try that first, if you didn’t get the answer than some of the ideas I have presented might help, again, depending on how determined you are.

@Season_of_Fall So you think the older records would only have the tax amount paid, not the sales price?

@Jeruba I know you are on the west coast, so going down to the tax office, might be county clerks office, isn’t practical for you. Many times the tax website will have a number to contact if you need older sales information, and they should be able to help you. I have found government offices on these sort of things to be very helpful, contrary to the typical stereotype.

@Season_of_Fall Oh, I see, I just reread the original question, the OP wants general value information for the area. So tax records would give that and not necessarily have a lot of sales transactions to go by.