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By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
Michael Sklarz is working on a Web-based product.

Isle researcher
finds a home
on the Web

Michael Sklarz has
left Prudential Locations

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By Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin

Michael Sklarz, guru of Hawaii residential real estate, has left Prudential Locations Inc. to create a Web-based research tool that promises to predict the right time to buy and sell any given property in the United States.

"I've got it set up like a stock market chart," said Sklarz, who left as Prudential's research director earlier this month. Sklarz has been designing the Web site since January with ISDI Inc., a data-processing consulting firm on Kapiolani Boulevard. Sklarz is now a director of ISDI.net Inc.

The Web site, ValueYourHome.com, is not yet open to the public. Sklarz said he is talking with national real estate firms to provide the research technology to their sales agents as early as late December. The site may reach the general Web audience later, Sklarz said.

ValueYourHome.com is backed by a database of more than 25 million existing property descriptions gathered from public records in 36 states, including Hawaii. The data, updated monthly, so far covers a total of 9,200 zip codes in those states. Sklarz said he eventually hopes to cover the whole country.

The site, when complete, would illustrate price trends for certain types of properties in a given market. For example, a customer could pick a three-bedroom home with more than 3,000 square feet in Beverly Hills under the zip code 90210. The screen would then pop up a line chart showing the actual price fluctuations of properties fitting that description, all from public records.

"The real power of this thing ... is you get past all the anecdotal stuff about the market," Sklarz said. The site will feature graphs showing when a market has turned or bottomed out.