While home prices thankfully aren’t quite as volatile as stock prices, Robert Reffkin, CEO of Compass real estate brokerage, says he thinks waiting a month to three months for a housing market report is too long.

“The typical market report reflects sales that are on average six weeks old,” Reffkin says. “Our new ‘Compass Markets’ reports are updated in real time as soon as public records are available so consumers and agents have the most up-to-the-minute information in their hands when they are looking at homes or negotiating a sale.”

The mobile app, developed by more than 50 in-house engineers, allows consumers and real estate agents to search by neighborhood, housing type, number of bedrooms and price range. Many categories have year-over-year analysis, including median prices, median price-per-square-foot, total listings, total dollar volume, days on market and negotiability. Real estate agents can produce market reports in PDF form and share them via email with their customers.

“We rolled this out in New York City about 10 months ago,” says Reffkin. “The D.C. market is our second largest market.”

[New app lets buyers search home listings on their TV]

The app is also being launched in Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, the Hamptons and the Santa Barbara/Montecito region in California.

Reffkin says consumers can benefit from up-to-date market information in several ways, such as:

• A buyer interested in a $1 million listing in Dupont Circle can review the most recent sales on the app to determine whether homes are selling for under or over the list price and then decide how much to offer.

• Buyers who want to make sure they’re getting the most value when they buy can compare the price per square foot for different recent sales with the homes they are visiting.

• A seller who worries that his house is sitting on the market too long can look at the most recent median number of days a comparable home stays on the market. Knowing that similar houses stayed on the market for a month or longer can help you not panic and avoid unnecessarily dropping your home price.

For an instructional video on how the app works, click here.

To access the free “Compass Markets” app, currently available for iOS devices, click here.

To pass on a tip or item, contact us at realestate@washpost.com and put “Town Square” in the subject line.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2016/08/03/new-app-gives-you-instant-access-to-housing-data-updates/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.21fcd37a3563