Condo prices

I have been keeping track of condo sale prices in my complex since I bought my unit in late 1989. In past years this has involved looking through the folders kept at the town assessors office. This is a bit of a chore and it seems like it shouldn't be necessary in the internet age. In fact Zillow claims to map recent sales (going back three years) but it doesn't seem to be complete. However it appears to be the best free online data available. Westchester county has the deeds online but annoyingly charges $20/day to view information which is free if you go down to their office. It was while trying to locate some missing data online that I encountered the weirdness I blogged about yesterday.

Anyway this is how prices for units like mine have varied over the years scaled so the price I paid is 1.0.

1990 0.93
1991 0.88
1992 0.87
1993 0.84
1994 0.80
1995 0.86
1996 0.86
1997 0.87
1998 0.92
1999 0.98
2000 1.22
2001 1.26
2002 1.64
2003 1.64
2004 1.89
2005 2.03
2006 1.97
2007 1.97
2008 1.97

As can be seen I didn't exactly buy at the low. Prices seem to be holding up ok after peaking in 2005 but I believe this is a bit misleading and that it would be hard to actually obtain the indicated price today. Which may be why there don't appear to have been any sales this year (although there is a considerable lag in reporting so there may have been some recently).

Disclaimer: while the above data is accurate as far as I know, I am not a real estate professional and may be making some obvious error. It should not be relied on without being independently verified.