# Finding property sales nearby and anywhere in Cook County Every quarter, Chicago Cityscape adds tens of thousands of property sale records for all property types in Cook County. It's easy to count and summarize the number of property transactions in any given municipality, Chicago community area, personally-drawn place, or near a specific address. This Knowledge Base article will walk through how to 1. Browse property sales across Cook County. 2. Find property sales in a given Chicago community area. 3. Find property sales near a sample address in Berwyn, a Cook County suburb. 4. Read an individual property transaction 5. Understand what constitutes an arms length transaction Our dataset starts in 2014 and is updated a few weeks after each quarter ends. The current period is shown beneath the "Property Sales" headings in both Property Reports and Place Reports and at the top of the main Property Sales page. ## 1. Browse property sales across Cook County Use the [Property Sales Browser](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/propertysales.php) to find, review, and analyze property sales across Cook County. The map and data table show the 10 most recent sales (see screenshot 1). Use the dropdown menu below the table to show more transactions at once.  *Screenshot 1* The five filters will narrow the results by municipality, sale date, sale price, property class, and street name or buyer or seller name. After changing any of the filters, click or tap the "Apply filters" button. ## 2. Find property sales in a given Chicago community area *This tutorial also works for any given Place Report in Cook County.* 1. From the Chicago Cityscape homepage, search for "South Shore" and click on the result that says [South Shore community area](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/maps/index.php?place=communityarea-south-shore) to open its Place Report. 2. In the Table of Contents, look or search for "Property Sales" and click or tap the link. The webpage will jump down to the Property Sales section. 3. Click or tap the "Load property sales & charts" button. 4. A map and data table will load, showing the 10 most recent property sales in the South Shore community area. Use the dropdown menu below the data table to increase the number shown.  *Screenshot 2* Next, browse the map and click on individual transactions or click the "next" button to see more sales. Progressing, though, you can use the Property Sales filters (shown in the bottom of screenshot 2) to narrow your search for specific property types (based on the Cook County Assessor property classifications), a sale price range, specific sale dates, Chicago zoning district, and lot area. To view details about a transaction, click on the "Property transaction details" link in the data table or a map marker's popup window. Scroll down to the "Read an individual property transaction" section to learn about the data points of each transaction. ### Filtering tips When it comes to sale price, we recommend always searching for a minimum of $100 to ensure you're looking only at arms length transactions (sales between two unrelated parties). There are many $0 transactions which are transfers between family members and people placing a property in a trust. The data can be exported by using one of the buttons next to "Download the data". The property sales data can be exported as CSV and used in spreadsheet applications, and it can be exported as GeoJSON and used in a GIS application. ### Arms length transactions Determining if a property sale is "arms length" is necessary for doing a sales comparisons (comps) analysis (usually by appraisers), to ensure the data used in the analysis represents fair market transactions and excludes transactions between family members and trusts, to give a couple of examples. For the purposes of determining assessed values, the Cook County Assessor Office also attempts to identify arms length transactions for the same reasons as above. They find that sales below $10,000 are rarely arms length. Our own analysis of sale prices in 2022 found that nearly a quarter of transactions have a price (or "full consideration") of $0; those are clearly not arms length transactions. ### Other features within Property Sales section Place Report's Property Sales section also includes two additional features: - Table of active buyers and sellers in the current calendar year. - Chart of property transaction activity in the Place Report over the last 16 quarters. ## 3. Find property sales near a sample address in Berwyn 1. From the Chicago Cityscape homepage, search for an address and open its Property Report. This tutorial will use [6546 W Windsor Ave](https://chicagocityscape.com/address.php?lat=41.834229&lng=-87.787748#parcels), four blocks southwest from the LaVergne Metra station in Berwyn. 2. In the Table of Contents, look or search for "Property sales" and then click or tap the link. The webpage will jump down to the Properties section. 3. Click or tap the "Load property sales" button. 4. A map and data table will load, showing the 10 most recent property sales within 150 feet of the address. 5. (See the annotations in screenshot 3.) Increase the number of properties shown by increasing the search radius and increasing the number of sales shown at a time. Scroll down to "Property Sales filters" and click or tap on the dropdown menu under the heading "Change the search area" and select a larger number like 1/2 mile and click or tap "Apply filters". Then, beneath the data table click the dropdown menu that says "Show 10 sales" and choose a larger number.  *Screenshot 3* ## 4. Read an individual property transaction On each individual property transaction page, you'll find the following summary and details (shown in screenshot 4): - A short narrative describing Who bought What from Whom for How much and When. - A map showing the location of the parcel(s) that were part of the transaction. - A list of details about the transaction, including the real estate transfer tax (RETT) paid, the instrument that was transferred (usually a type of deed), and the brokers or agents (if those are listed). - A list of other transactions involving the same PIN. - A map showing similar transactions.  *Screenshot 4* The map showing similar transactions (see screenshot 5) finds sales with properties in the same property classification group, within 10 percent of the price, and up to one mile away. Review a list of all of the property classifications and their groups.  *Screenshot 5* ## 5. Arms length transactions Comparables should ideally comprise only arms length transactions to ensure the fair market value can be established. To find arms-length transactions we are using most of the filters that the Cook County Assessor's Office uses. Our filter uses the following flags to identify if a property is not arms length: - sale price of $10,000 or less - uses a quit claim deed, executor deed, or beneficial interest instrument - has no instrument type specified - has a value for any of nine Line 10 items in the PTAX-203 form In one of our tests we found that 17 percent of property sales in the Near West Side community area had one or more of the flags and were not considered to be an arms length transaction. Across Cook County in 2022, 86,300 out of 136,327 transactions, or 63.3 percent, were likely arms length. Use the checkbox in Property Finder and Property Sales Browser to exclude property sales that are likely not arms length transactions. # Related articles - [[Features for appraisers|Features for appraisers]] - [[Properties for sale]]