COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WHAT THE HOME LISTING STATUS CODES REALLY MEAN 
“For those of you that think you know about real estate, but don’t, you will find a breakdown of HAR statuses at the bottom of this post. Pending Continue to Show (PS) means that the seller is still willing to have the house shown. It does not mean that there are necessarily any contingencies, it just means that they *might* still allow showings. They still have the right to decline a showing when an agent tries to schedule an appointment, and many sellers do choose to decline the showing, or at least don’t tend to be as flexible as they may have been before the home was under contract. The reality is that most agents don’t show homes that have a PS status anyway, unless the listing agent makes it a point to specify that the seller is willing to accept back-up offers. Many agents don’t use Pending (P) unless the seller absolutely insists on no further showings.
OP — Option Pending: Listings that are under contract and the seller and buyer have agreed to use the ‘Termination Option’ in paragraph 23 of the standard TREC contract, effective 1/1/03;
PS — Pending Continue to Show: Used for listings currently under contract but are still available to show. Listings having a contract with a contingency and taking back-up offers should be Pending Continue to Show;
P — Pending: Used for listings under contact and are no longer available to show;
S — Sold: Used when a property has funded and closed. All sales closed must be reported to MLS. Listings should not be changed to Sold status before the actual closing.” [HoustonRealtor, commenting on Restocking a Converted Grocery Store in the Houston Heights] Illustration: Lulu
Sign up for the Newsletter
I’ve never seen a property listed on HAR as being ‘sold’. Instead, the listing just disappears. If you want that information, and the all-important *selling price*, you must consult a site like NuHabitat, and have the MLS number in hand.
I’ve tried NuHabitat and it’s utterly worthless, the sales figures are available on Zilllow with a ton of other information NuHabitat does not have. They also don’t seem to have any info on homes that are not currently for sale.
On the contrary, Zillow is worthless, for non-pro. Properties near my home sold in the last month show no sales price, only wildly inaccurate ‘Zestimates’. Perhaps the previous poster has a ‘Pro’ access.
@Sebastocrator: I agree that a Zestomate is useless but they also show List and Sale history. Zillow and NuHabitat presumably get their data from the same source and far from every home lists a final sale price, not all realtors report it.
homesnap.com (was sawbuck) has the actual sold prices for recent sales, with price history. Seems like it covers about a year. Free to register.
.
Not in the market, but like to snoop.
I look at Homesnap.com almost every day. I primarily look at listings in 77024, and some other close in zip codes.
The teardtown house next to me sold in April for $496K (verified by a Realtor friend). The Zillow estimate is $357 (underestimated by 28%). The home next door to my sister in Hunter Creek Village is listed at $1.325 mil – its online estimate is $903K (that’s over 40% off). The home I bought 3 years ago is estimated at $60K less that the selling price. It’s not even close to my HCAD value (about $50K off). My question is where are they pulling these numbers from and where can I find a seller that will sell to me at the Zillow price?!
Zillow gets their numbers from a very poorly designed algorithm which is less accurate than reading tea leaves. They publicly admitted that in the Houston market they have a 70% error rate. Ignore the Zestimate, all the other info is pretty useful.