Housing reality data
Context is useful. Fake precision is not.
National housing statistics can explain the environment people are deciding in. They cannot predict one home’s taxes, insurance, rent or construction price.
Source register
Named primary sources and the principle that every calculator default must be traceable.
Available nowMethodology
The five gates every calculator must clear before publication.
Available nowLimits
The things this site will never pretend to know or sell.
What national data can and can't tell you
A national or state-level statistic describes an average across a huge and varied population — it was never built to predict one specific address. Property tax rates alone can differ enormously between counties in the same state. Construction costs move with local labor markets and material availability. Insurance premiums depend on a specific property's location, age, and claims history. National figures are useful as a sanity check and a starting scenario; they stop being useful the moment they're mistaken for a quote.
The standard every figure on this site is held to
Every sourced number used anywhere on TrueCostHousing carries a named source and a verification date, gets checked against that source at least once a year, and is clearly separated from the user-entered fields where local numbers belong instead. That standard is documented in full — including the five gates a figure has to clear before it's published — on the methodology page.
For the specific difference between context and a quote, see why national housing estimates should not be mistaken for local quotes.