In the UK, US, Australia and other advanced countries property sold prices are available to the general public from government agencies. In some cases you must pay a fee however the data is available for free on certain well known web sites. As an example see http://www.nethouseprices.com/index.php?con=Search-Sold-House-Prices.

A market where selling prices are transparent and readily available, recovers quicker from price corrections. This gives market participants confidence to trade and allows the market to return to normal quickly.

In Ireland the government have sale prices for all property but refuse to release this information. I tried to get sale prices for an area in Dublin using the freedom of information act. In an email I was told I could have some spurious details like the owners mortgage details but I could not see the price the property sold for.
I could not see the price the property sold for. Why not? Ask yourself, who are the people to benefit mostly from this?

We need this to be changed for the following reasons

To avoid dishonest estate agents duping buyers and sellers.
To bring liquidity to the property market and avoid a long Japanese style recession.
To bring confidence back to the property market.
To allow compilation of fact based economic reports unlike the monthly ERSI report.

Currently it appears that methods of valuation such as “Asking Price”, “Advised Minimum Value” etc. are all without basis of comparison to true referenced actual sale prices. Many other countries in the world have valuations that can be accessed on-line by locality.