Streeteasy Insider - worth $10 monthly?

you only see the sales price of an apt. after it has closed. If it is in contract, then you do not see it.

lol, your question is a sign of the times. a pros and cons discussion on a $10/month purchase.

jpage, you get a very handy front-end to ACRIS data, saving you the trouble of keeping two windows open, looking up block and lot, etc. It's well worth the $10. Besides looking at one unit at a time, you can also do things like crank out spreadsheets of sales data for whole categories of apartment.

As The_P said, in-contract data shows nowhere; not in ACRIS and not here.

The brilliance of ADMIN's comment, especially in light of a potential seven figure purchase, has compelled me to suck it up and pay the $10. Well played admin, well played.

@admin $10 a month is $120 a year. Not chump change. Interesting how breaking an annual payment down into weeks or days makes it easier to swallow.

There was a Honda lease commercial a while back that showed a picture of a sandwich hero and said for $5 a day (cost of the sandwich) you can drive a new leased Honda. $150 a month would sound challenging (to a person starting out in life), but $5 a day sounds like nothing. Good commercial.

$120 a year to be a member of the site? Dont know many other information providing websites/forums that cost that much. Even WSJ costs less at $99.

Disclosure: was a member when I was seriously looking at properties earlier this year. Cancelled when I knew I wasnt going to buy until later. Yeah sure, I'll re-up for a while when I'm ready to buy again. But spending $120 a year? Not for nothing, but its just not worth it if you're not actively in the market. I guess for some people its a full time hobby even if they never shit and stay on the pot.

beseder, didn't mean to criticize at all. i'm frugal myself. just that in bubble times i remember hearing things like "who can't afford that?" from all type of people making the frugal feel like losers. now is more like "you are crazy! coffee from starbucks?!?!?"

i do think annually (in general) too. love honda, i'm a shareholder here and there, when the price is right. that one might had been the only good commercial they ever did though. they are great overall, big fan. anyway, point being, my way of "spending" in this would be to get it for 1 month during which i'd get all the research done and cancel once i chewed the info i needed. it helps me given my short attention span. it's not only $ for me, it's time, attention, return on the info...

The frustration of not getting the insider data when you want to know about a particular property or group of comps will get you at some point. And then you will join.

It's interesting that no one has said anything along the lines of "I like to support the site that I get so much out of".

Who are you kidding 30yrs_RE_20_in_REO the most complicated name around here to type. You are a property owner landlord charging as much to the average NYer you can and then buying the foreclosures from banks to take advantage of distressed owners.

30yrs, there is that. I should know better, but still catch myself in "it's here by magic" syndrome. I doubt the ads are carrying SE.

jpage, yes, for the ease of comping apts. You can find closed prices elsewhere, but having all sold units since 04 available alongside original listings is tremendous, and the retention of old listings tells you true time on market and price changes regardless of broker claims. 30yrs_RE_20_in_REO's point is a good one, too.

FLeduff, type? Triple-click cmd-c cmd-v, takes 2 seconds. If you don't find value in 30yrs_RE_20_in_REO's contributions, you're reading the wrong board.

I thought you had to pay.

I'm not sure how buying foreclosures from banks constitutes taking advantage of distressed owners. By the time I'm buying them from banks, any damage done to the owners, well, that ship has long since sailed. You could say I'm taking advantage of the banks, but do you really care about that?

But I'm not sure what your comment is about other than showing how much of an asshat you are. What does my pointing out that people should think about becoming members not just because they are doing some cost benefit analysis on the pay only features, but because they want to support a site which clearly relies on people becoming members to be viable?

Come clean: under what handle did I face plant you that you're using this sock puppet for an ad hominem attack?

streeteasy should have a special yearly rate such as $99 for the year. Like getting 2 months free just like landlords are forced to give 2 months free rent for their apartments. It is also good business sense. If the subscriber cancels in less than a year, then they would be charged at the $10 month. How 'bout it, streeteasy?

maybe you guys should try cribseek.com, its free

jpage - If you give me $5/month I will look everything up for you. In fact, if you can round up a few friends that will each pay me $5/month I will charge you $2/month.

I am just kidding....mostly....

"buying the foreclosures from banks to take advantage of distressed owners."

it does not. 30yrs takes advantage of the general distress, but not of the previous owners. and in doing so helps to clear the mkt. the ex-homeowners's (or glorified renters) misfortune was created in part by themselves, in part by bad gov policies, herd mentality, easy credit, ... all in which 30yrs had no say.

FLeduff, cheap morality constitutes fallacy ad hominem though. SE will earn way much money by charging $10 each time somebody uses a fallacy like that on this blog, it's just rampant. but then, some bloggers like steve will just go bust and FLeduff will say "SE took advantage of steve!"

"Besides looking at one unit at a time, you can also do things like crank out spreadsheets of sales data for whole categories of apartment."

where/how do you do this?

Would you prefer that the banks just hold onto the foreclosed properties and have no one buy them?

MAV, under "recorded sales", do a search. From the Results page, click the orange XLS button to save to a spreadsheet.