ORLANDO, Fla. - One of the biggest mysteries in the tumultuous housing market these days is: How much is that house worth?

Appraisers, real-estate agents, buyers and sellers are in a quandary about whether to include bargain-basement sales in the price mix when determining the value of a nearby, comparable home.

"It's really causing havoc in the market right now," said Les Simmonds, president of the Orlando (Fla.) Regional Realtor Association. "Hopefully it will turn around as we go through inventory of foreclosures and other distress sales. But I want to emphasize that could take some time."

The confusion over home values in a changing market is compounded when it takes weeks - or even months - for actual sale prices to reach government and commercial Web sites. One nationwide Internet sales site is taking on that problem by rolling out next-day closing prices, with the hope that it will draw potential customers by helping take some of the guesswork out of determining the worth of nearby properties.

Realtor.com has started posting sale prices the day after the transactions close in 22 U.S. markets.

"If you're trying to track trends in your neighborhood, you can find out what homes sold for in 24 hours. You don't have to wait 60 to 90 days," said Julie Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Web site, which serves as a national, consumer version of local Realtors' well-known Multiple Listing Service. "With the rapidly changing market trends, especially in Florida, it's an art to establish the right list price or the right bid."

Current sales information also can affect homeowners who are considering whether to sell or refinance their property, she said. The sales information is available in the "Find Home Values" feature on Realtor.com's home page.

Leah Selig, executive director of the Space Coast Association of Realtors, said her group voted to disclose its members' sales-price information to the public on a next-day basis to give the Realtors' Web site an advantage over competitors such as Zillow.com, which provides property listings and estimated home values for houses throughout the country.

"Some of these public sites are publishing data that is not always current or accurate," Selig said. "And you've got consumers out there relying on that information when it's really months old."

Zillow posts sale prices within about three weeks of closings in most markets.

So far, the Orlando Realtor association hasn't embraced next-day reporting of sale prices. The group voted against the idea about a year ago, noting that the information typically becomes available on government Web sites within a few weeks of a closing, Simmonds said.

But he added that the group is likely to review its earlier position, perhaps as soon as next week.

Though quicker reporting of sale prices can give the public more-accurate snapshots of the home market as a moving target, it won't untangle confusion over whether foreclosures and short sales should affect the value of other homes.

Real-estate analysts have tried to keep such "distress sales" from sullying the rest of the housing pool by separating the two in monthly price reports. On the other hand, Orange County Property Appraiser Bill Donegan often includes foreclosures when his staff computes home values in particular neighborhoods.

The Florida Department of Revenue has advised county property appraisers that they are allowed to, but don't have to, use foreclosure sales when determining the value of nearby properties. Donegan said his staff is factoring foreclosures into property values in areas that contain numerous bank-sold houses.

"It's got to be more than one, or even five, foreclosures spread out among 3,000 houses," Donegan said. He said his appraisers are "being awfully cautious, based on what they did before (the housing bubble deflated). They'd rather be low than high."

The Orlando Regional Realtor Association has taken to distinguishing between the prices paid for foreclosure properties and those paid for homes sold through conventional methods. In May, for instance, the median price paid for all distress sales was $140,000, compared with the $165,000 median for "normal" sales, the association said.

Simmonds said he thinks it's important to categorize the two types of sales because people need to understand why prices overall have continued to drop, even as monthly sales volume has been improving compared with a year ago.

(c) 2009, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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