How to find history of Property Value Increase or Decrease by counties?

Question

I'm in Northern VA and interested in buying my first place. There are two counties that are about equal distance to work, etc.

Right now, house prices between these two counties are similar. How can I find out the history of how well housing has done in these two communities???

And...

What should I factor in to forecast the future of property value between these two???

Thanks

Answer 1

County Tax assessor can give you some historical info since they tax the properties year after year after year.

Real Estate agents can generally give you info for about a year's timeframe and what the forecast looks like for the short term.

As for figuring out which would be best, you can track how a few similar properties have performed over time by looking up their tax basis and doing some comparisons between the two neighborhoods.

Hope that helps!