BiggerPockets

Not exactally knowing a lot about the market in a particular area, I'm looking at the property records. Should I pay more attention to the price that was paid for the property X number of years ago or the appraised/assessed value?

What are you hoping to get from these numbers? Neither gives you the current value, nor what the owner would accept for the place.

Old valuations are irrelevant to current value. So I'd stick with current comps. Realtors may help, but there are programs like Zillow that you can use without having to use a realtor.

Zillow has both "Zestimats" which are not too useful (but getting better). And they ALSO PROVIDE THE $ OF THE LAST SALE!!! This is the SAME information you would be getting from a Realtors Comps! The only thing you need you don't know from this number is the SELLER'S CONCESSIONS. In my area, the local paper also publishes the sale prices, and they can be looked up by Street address, or by owner name.

I don't recommend relying on a Realtor to provide comps! I pull way too many, and if I had to rely on an agent for help things would go much slower, and the agent would be super annoyed that I'm bugging him all the time. Yes, they are making money off of me, but I try to only go to people for help when I cannot help myself. If you follow that, you'll have much better personal relationships, and your realtor will be happy to help rather than avoid you calls! This is important in RE because the good deals don't last! I'm often going to view and put a offer on a property within minutes of it hitting the MLS. My realtor has a blank contract with my signature already on it stashed at his office. We make a lot of offers!