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Searching for Real Estate Using the 'Net?
digThisXL asks: "We've all used the Internet to search for real estate at one time or another. But has the 'net truly become an effective tool to search for real estate? Are we going to be stuck with using real estate agents forever? I have found HomeSeekers to provide nice maps; Realtor.Com and the Michigan Multiple Listing Service provide up-to-date listings; but there doesn't seem to be a definitive search site! What are the best ways your readers have discovered to uncover those hidden gems?" There's also (obviously) Realty.Com (no confusion there), as well, but I've never used it and happened into it one day. What do you folks think of these sites? If you have local real estate sites that you know of (like the Michigan site listed by the submittor), then please share -- another Slashdot reader who lives close to you may be asking this same question.
For the first-time buyer, a good realtor can be immensely helpful. There's tons of paperwork and bureaucracy involved, and unless you've really done your homework, a realtor can be quite helpful. And if you're new to the area, there's plenty about prospective neighborhoods that the internet will never reveal, and you need an experienced realtor to help clue you in.
Also, in a tight market, a good percentage of places will be sold the first day they get listed, and will never make it to the web.
I should qualify that we used a buyer's broker -- in other words, he worked for us, and helped us to find a place, and wasn't trying to sell us a house he was listing. This is a change from the old-fashioned realtor who was really only working for the seller, but would claim to have your interests in mind. (This isn't to say there aren't plenty of worthless realtors or buyer brokers out there...)
For the experienced and knowledgable buyer or seller, a realtor is probably not necessary. But for someone new to the process, it would be very difficult to get by without one. Just do your homework and interview any prospective agents until you find one you like. It worked for us.
I used to work on real estate web sites.
Most local MLSs (multiple listing services) have sites that are open to the public. Here in Chicago, the site is called www.mlsni.com.
Although MLSs aren't national, they tend to be the most complete databases around. But sometimes there isn't a single MLS you can use. I think there are something like 20 MLSs in Cleveland, and I'm pretty sure that at least parts of Manhattan don't have one at all. So depending on where you are, you might have some luck with your local newspaper's site.
It also makes sense to look at the company specific sites. Most towns have one or two large players who control most of the listings -- searching their sites will turn up most of the stuff you're interested in.
In order to understand the situation, you have to start with the fact that Realtors make their money in large part from their privilaged access to MLS systems. If you want to sell your house getting listed in the MLS is important, and if you want to do that, you have to pay a Realtor.
And on the flip side, a great deal of the profits from the business come from selling things like mortgages to home buyers. That's why you see companies like GMAC running their own real estate companies.
How does this affect the web? Well, in a universe where MS's Home Advisor functions as a national real estate marketing database, MS gets to sell the banner ads to the mortgage companies. Large realtors want to keep control over the customer -- they want to steer him or her to their own mortgage company. So the national aggregator web sites like Realtor.com and Home Advisor were seen as threats.
Just because the rise of the web has rendered the proprietary systems of the past obsolete technically doesn't mean that Realtors want to give up their leverage. None of the 800 lb. gorillas in the current dynamic have an interest in an efficient web based system where everyone has equal access to the market.
The big companies definitely saw things like Home Advisor as a real threat. And they've done what they can to block it.
So why do the aggregators exist at all? Well, MLSs are run by local boards of realtors. And those guys tend to be dominated by small realtors who have lots of votes. Coldwell Banker might sell 40% of the houses in your town, but they probably get pushed around a bit on the local realty board by small companies with a few offices at most. And those small companies user their votes to allow the MLS to sell all of its listings to the homestore.com and homeadvisor.com's of the world.
There are an awful lot of complicated power struggles going on behind the scenes.
The long and the short of it is that an open, efficient web based marketplace for homes is only slightly more likely to happen than open, efficient, online sales of GM cars. Too many people with too much money and clout will lose if it happens.
The net is indispensible, and largely removes the realtor from your searches.
We used realtor.com for the most part. Basically, if you just call an agent, they're not going to listen to what you're looking for, and they're going to take you to things that they have listed and want to get rid of. They're salespeople, after all. They will also want you to sign an "exclusive" agreement stating that you will not use any other agents for a period of time.
What we would do is search realtor.com and harmonhomes.com (a local to CT site, which unfortunately was recently redesigned to the point of uselessness) and find the things that specifically fit what we were looking for. We would print out maps to them (a feature on realtor.com), and drive by to see if it was something we'd like before ever calling the agent.
If we liked it, we'd call the agent and they'd take us out to look at it. Only once was the "exclusive agreement" brought up, and we insisted that it be a 24-hour agreement. Don't get roped into anything else, although I understand that these things are indefensible legally.
This saved us a lot of time, kept us away from realtors as much as possible, and found us our dream home, which we just closed on last week.
One more bit of advice -- get your mortgage through a broker, not through a bank. Mortgage brokers *only* deal with mortgages, so they're not distracted by everyday banking things, they can give you a boatload of options rather than the bank's 1 or 2 options, and they can often get you approved more easily, since they deal with a lot more mortgages than just one, so your mortgage becomes part of a "package" where millions are borrowed rather than a couple of hundred thousand.
I guess I can comment on this since I'm looking to either rent or purchase an apartment in NYC. And lemme tell you something, it ain't fun.
There are three things you need to deal with in searching for a place online:
1. dis-information
2. scams
3. horrible sites with horrible query functions
You'll find places on the 'net that sound too good to be true... mainly because they are. After calling the # that you find in the Village Voice online, you realize that this is one of those services that although they don't charge a broker fee, requires you to pay $200 upfront for nothing.
So you turn down that... instead finding a site that has some great pictures with great descriptions... of course it was taken 3 weeks ago because the market moves faster than they have the time to put the information on the web.
And then there are just the really crappy sites. I've almost submitted proposals for work offering to make their sites better looking and more functional if they'll just drop the 15% broker fee (that's quite hefty since it's 15% of the total yearly rental which for a small 1 bedroom rental will equal about $3000+).
Searching for real estate online is just like searching for anything else. You have two choices: go to the main players in the space or be prepared to follow a lot of shitty links to a lot of shitty phone service. Once in a while you'll get a gem, but often you'll get crap.
If you're in NYC, try using www.bellmarc.com or www.corcoran.com Nice pictures, descriptions, and brokers, but their prices are higher... or, one of those gems that I found is a woman named Sophia that works at www.getapts.com (tell her I sent you)
Just like everything else, dilligence is necessary... and sometimes you just need to get lucky.
...but I've found Domania.com to be an excellent resource when it comes to finding information about pricing for homes. I can look up the prices for a house or even all the houses on a street. Their coverage is pretty good for where I live (Chicago SW suburbs), and I think they cover a lot of areas in the US, except for Texas because it's a non-disclosure state. Anyway, my wife and I have used it a lot out of curiosity, and since we expect to be buying a house within the next few years I'm sure we'll use it for real.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
The net has allowed people to sell and buy homes sans realtor, but much of the money being put into the Net in this market, as in all markets, is coming from the people who have the money in the brick-n-mortor side of the market.
I could go list my home on eBay with maps, photos, etc. and sell it that way, or I could list it in Yahoo! classifieds, but that won't rid the world of realtors. Nor should it.
I use the Net to find the property I like, and then get me in touch with the agent or seller. Buying land online is much differenty from buying a car or CD online. In these cases, you can go down to your local dealer/retailer and test out the merchandise, while with a home, you really must see it in person, and it won't come to you.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
The only certainty is entropy.
On the upside, there are a fair number of genuine listings - you just have to be willing to wade through the spam, and not give into the temptation to respond to the realtors who are trying to deceive you into paying their fees.
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
The "net" has helped me alot with research. I use a very simple but profitable system for buying 2 and 3 families. My rules ( i hope it helps you guys ) are as follows.
1) find the work population center that people must travel to. I live in northern NJ so I use New York City.
2) using bus and rail scheduals I locate towns that have no more than 43 minutes of travel time to the main hubs on NYC ( Hoboken, Port Athority building and Grand Central station ). My list had over 321 zip codes
3) sort the list by average prices of 2 and 3 family homes take the bottom half of the list. (cheap homes)
3) take all the towns and sort by crime trend of 8 years. The sort should be from best to worst.
4) take the top 60. and now rank by average tax of homes. ( Most MLS have databases of these numbers.) take the 40 lowest tax areas.
5) rank the list by eduacation. the only data I have for this is the SAT scores that are published every year for each town. the data is for free.
6) take the top 10.
That's it, I then start seaching for handy man specials. and check out the towns. If I like the area, & the commute is true to bus schedual I start to hunt.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Location! Location! Location!
You want to be in a good neighbourhood, close to schools, shopping, and recreational facilities.
I don't know how you are going to determine if a given property has any of these things purly by surfing. Sooner or later, prospective purchasers are going to have to go to the area and find out for themselves what it is like.
The pictures and short description of the house will not give you enough information about whether you want to buy it or not.
Besides, when you are spending that much coin, you want to see it for yourself.
People won't buy cars on-line, why would they buy houses that way. Part of the purchasing experience
is going to the place and checking it out - live and in person.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
i just spent the past three months helping my mother find her new home...two and a half months were spent using web realtors and such...and i'll be honest with you, the real estate sellers on the web have NOTHING in the way of true online resources. Realty websites do nothing except serve as an advertisement for the realtors who will ultimately get your business anyway.
Oh, and after two months on the 'net, we were able to locate and close on a house in less than three weeks with a local real estate agent. Guess some things just weren't meant for e-business.