Then and Now
Ten years ago, a search for real
estate would have started in the office of a local real estate agent or by just
driving around town. At the agent's office, you would spend an afternoon
flipping through pages of active property listings from the local Multiple
Listing Service (MLS). After choosing properties of interest, you would spend
many weeks touring each property until you found the right one. Finding market
data to enable you to assess the asking price would take more time and a lot
more driving, and you still might not be able to find all of the information
you needed to get really comfortable with a fair market value.
Today, most property searches start
on the Internet. A quick keyword search on Google by location will likely get
you thousands of results. If you spot a property of interest on a real estate
web site, you can typically view photos online and maybe even take a virtual
tour. You can then check other Web sites, such as the local county assessor, to
get an idea of the property's value, see what the current owner paid for the
property, check the real estate taxes, get census data, school information, and
even check out what shops are within walking distance-all without leaving your
house!
While the resources on the Internet
are convenient and helpful, using them properly can be a challenge because of
the volume of information and the difficulty in verifying its accuracy. At the
time of writing, a search of "Denver real estate" returned 2,670,000
Web sites. Even a neighborhood specific search for real estate can easily
return thousands of Web sites. With so many resources online how does an
investor effectively use them without getting bogged down or winding up with
incomplete or bad information? Believe it or not, understanding how the
business of real estate works offline makes it easier to understand online real
estate information and strategies.
Despite the widely available access
to real estate listings, many believe that MLS databases continue to offer the
most complete and accurate source of real estate information. Most MLSs now
distribute content to other Web sites (primarily operated by real estate
agents). An excellent starting point for MLS originated content is the national
NAR Web site, realtor.com, which is also the most popular web site for
searching real estate listings. Virtually all local and regional MLSs have an
agreement with realtor.com to display much of their active listing inventory.
Some local and regional MLS systems
also have a publicly accessible Web site. However, to get complete information
you will most likely still need to find a qualified local REALTOR. Many local
real estate agents will also provide their customers (via email) new listings
that are input into the MLS that match their predefined criteria. This can be
very helpful to a busy buyer.
There are also many Web sites that
display both real estate agent listed and for-sale-by-owner properties. Some of
the more popular Web sites include zillow.com and trulia.com. These sites offer
other services too. For example, zillow.com is best known for its instantaneous
property valuation function and trulia.com for providing historical
information. Another source of properties for sale is the state, regional, and
local Web sites associated with brokerage companies; for example, remax.com or
prudential.com. Search engines like yahoo.com and classified advertising sites
like craigslist.com also have a large number of active real estate listings.
One key difference between these
sites is how much information you can access anonymously. For example, at
trulia.com you can shop anonymously up to a point but then you will need to
click through to the agent's Web site for more information. Many new real
estate search engines allow you to sift through listings without having to fill
out a form. The best strategy is to browse a few of the sites listed above to
find geographic areas or price ranges that are interesting. Once you get serious
about a property, then that is the time to find a qualified REALTOR of your
choice to conduct a complete search in the local MLS.
It also never hurts to search the
old-fashioned way by driving through the neighborhoods that interest you. There
is no substitute for physically, not virtually, walking the block when you are
making a serious investment decision. In this sense, real estate is still a
very local business and standing in front of the property can lead to a much
different decision than viewing a Web page printout.
Valuing Real Estate by Mehul Realty:
As we mentioned, one of the most
popular real estate tools is zillow.com's instant property valuation. Just type
in an address and in and you get a property value. It even charts the price ups
and downs, and shows the last date sold (including price) and the property
taxes. There are other sites that provide similar tools such as housevalues.com
and homegain.com. Unfortunately, many people use these estimated values alone
to justify sales prices, offers and counteroffers. However, these are only
rough estimates based on a formula that incorporates the local county sales
information. These estimates can swing wildly over a short period of time and
do not appear to always track actual market changes, which are normally more
gradual. In addition, these estimates do not automatically take into account
property remodels or renovations or other property specific or local changes.
This is not to say these sites are not useful. In fact, they are great starting
points and can provide a good ball-park value in many cases.
When it comes to getting a more
accurate value for a particular property, there are other strategies that are
more trustworthy. One is to go directly to your county's Web site. More often
than not the county assessor's area of the Web site provides sales and tax
information for all properties in the county. If you want to research a
particular property or compare sales prices of comparable properties, the local
assessor's sites are really helpful. When you visit a county's Web site you are
getting information straight from the source. Most counties today publish
property information on their Web sites. Many times you cannot only see the
price a previous owner paid, but the assessed value, property taxes, and maps.
Some county assessors are now adding a market and property valuation tools too.
Given the importance of valuation to
investing, we are also going to remind you of the two most important
(non-Internet) valuation methods: real estate agents and appraisers. Working
with a local REALTOR is an accurate and efficient way to get value information
for a property. While one of the primary purposes of the MLS is to market the
active property listings of its members, the system also collects sales
information for those listings. REALTOR members can pull this sales information
and produce comparable market analyses (sometimes called CMAs) that provide an
excellent snapshot of a particular property's value for the market in a
particular area.
To know more about Mehul Realty visit here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehulp27