Trulia Reveals 'Crystal Ball' Home Price Predictor

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- National home and real estate websites are in a heated competition to generate the most up-to-date, accurate home sales figures.

That's good news for homeowners, who are getting more help figuring out the accurate value of their home before they sell it, and for homebuyers who want to peg a good price on a home before they make an offer.

The latest salvo on that front really has a unique twist - it's a new technology from Trulia that calculates the short-term future price of U.S. homes and rentals.

Homeowners hoping to wait out the housing bust of the past few years will find Trulia's newest price forecasting tool quite useful.

The new technology, called the Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor, aims to take a stab at providing what Trulia calls "leading indicators" on home and rental price trends across the U.S.

Information released by Trulia show the Price Monitor is expected to "reveal monthly home prices and rent estate trends, specifically showing price patterns several months ahead of the leading sales price indexes, nationally and locally in the U.S.'s top 100 metros."

"Based on the for-sale homes and rentals listed on Trulia.com, these Monitors take into account changes in the mix of listed homes, reflecting trends in prices and rents for similar homes in similar neighborhoods through March 31, 2012," Trulia says in a statement released Wednesday. The Price Monitor is officially being released today, according to company sources.

Trulia says that current home pricing models reflect events that have already taken place in the economy and in the real estate sector. The difference with the Pricing Monitor, the company says, is that takes into account events that are happening now to provide
a more current indicator of housing market trends. The monitor will be released at the start of every month, Trulia says.