So where do you look when you're house hunting?

[Aura]

Do you stick with real estate sites or do you look other places? If you look other places, where?

 

What are your favorite real estate sites?

 

Do you make ISO posts on social media sites?

 

Do you post pictures of the place you're selling on other sites?

 

:bigear:

[Guest]

Zillow is my favorite starting point.

[Aura]

I used to like Zillow...until I was seriously looking and my house was one of those listed on Zillow. They are TERRIBLE at updating things, even when asked. And their info is not very reliable.  :glare:

 

(I'm rather irked with them because I've emailed them and asked multiple times for them to update my info, and they don't even bother to reply! My realtor has updated his listing, but Zillow won't reload or whatever for the listing to show those changes.)

[Crimson Wife]

In a hot market, you need a buyers' agent who will show you "coming soon" listings before they hit MLS. That way you can place an offer as soon as the seller's agent will accept it.

 

We purchased during a slow market but our previous rental was during a hot market and we'd had no luck until we started working with a buyers' agent. The place we ended up renting never even hit the open market because we placed a bid that was $100/mo. over the asking rent plus 3 months' security deposit instead of the normal 2.

[Heidi]

Zillow only. I buy and sell on Zillow.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Heidi

[gardenmom5]

when house hunting with 1dd - she had an agent who would send up daily updates.  I stalked redfin.com - which is big here.  (it's not everywhere.  I like it better than zillow.)  it also takes from the MLS.  I found the house the day it was listed - the RE updates would have sent it the next day - since it was listed after the daily email.

 

eta: we were in a seller's market/hot market at the time - and it's only gotten worse.  there were three offers in two days.  (they didn't keep the listing through the first weekend -our advantage).   we had a very good buyer's agent who knows how to write an offer in a bidding war.  so, dd got the house.

Edited July 16, 2017 by gardenmom5

[Annie G]

We've been looking on Realtor.com

 

 

 

[Guest]

Zillow and Redfin.  Redfin is in fewer markets, though.

 

ETA:  We had a realtor looking for us last time, but we found almost every house and he ran sanity check on it.  He never even saw the house we live in but did a totally great job negotiating the deal.  Probably got the house for us--there were multiple bidders, all up-bidding the house and he snooped around and found out what the sellers cared most about and made that part of our offer, and that was why we got the house.

 

[gardenmom5]

I used to like Zillow...until I was seriously looking and my house was one of those listed on Zillow. They are TERRIBLE at updating things, even when asked. And their info is not very reliable.  :glare:

 

(I'm rather irked with them because I've emailed them and asked multiple times for them to update my info, and they don't even bother to reply! My realtor has updated his listing, but Zillow won't reload or whatever for the listing to show those changes.)

 

this is what really turned me off zillow.  the info wasn't current - and they were showing houses for sale that weren't.  not worth my time.

 

[TarynB]

Zillow and Redfin.  Redfin is in fewer markets, though.

 

ETA:  We had a realtor looking for us last time, but we found almost every house and he ran sanity check on it.  He never even saw the house we live in but did a totally great job negotiating the deal.  Probably got the house for us--there were multiple bidders, all up-bidding the house and he snooped around and found out what the sellers cared most about and made that part of our offer, and that was why we got the house.

 

If you wouldn't mind sharing, what did the sellers in your case care most about, and how did your realtor find that out?

 

[MaeFlowers]

I used to like Zillow...until I was seriously looking and my house was one of those listed on Zillow. They are TERRIBLE at updating things, even when asked. And their info is not very reliable. :glare:

 

(I'm rather irked with them because I've emailed them and asked multiple times for them to update my info, and they don't even bother to reply! My realtor has updated his listing, but Zillow won't reload or whatever for the listing to show those changes.)

Zillow uses a third party to enter their info. Realtor.com updates directly from the MLS.

[slackermom]

I like to use redfin to keep track of the market. I like that I can use it to look through historical data. 

 

We had access to MLS many years ago as broker members, and that is slightly better, since there are sometimes broker notes that aren't shared with the general public.

 

We have had some success just through the neighborhood grapevines. The house we are moving into soon was never on the market. My BIL knew someone in his neighborhood who was thinking of selling an inherited house, but who didn't want to deal with marketing the place. I know at least 3 other people in DH's extended family who got their houses that way, when someone heard about something that might be opening up in their neighborhood, and they did a direct deal.

 

If I were to add up all the relatives, houses are probably 1/3 through brokers and/or MLS listings, 1/3 through word-of-mouth without brokers, and 1/3 are family-to-family sales.

[AMJ]

We generally use a real estate agent, though we were lucky and could use a trusted one already discovered by other family members.  

 

One experience did have me grateful for an experienced agent showing us around:  We were visiting several houses in an evening, and we pulled up to the next one on the list to find the lights all on, the door wide open, and no one apparently there.  This felt wrong, and our agent instructed us to stay in the car.  He went to the door, knocked and called out several times, and poked his head in.  He then came back to the car, called the selling agent for that house to apprise her of the situation, and then got us out of there.  He never told us what was the deal with that house and there was no crime reported in the following days, but we found out later that the sellers were an odd bunch and we likely wouldn't have wanted to deal with that house.

 

This agent also steered us away from certain neighborhoods, citing low-lying areas.  Those areas later flooded when some tropical storms came through, even though in previous years those areas hadn't flooded.  Every house he showed us was situated on streets that remained high and dry.

[MommyLiberty5013]

We have an awesome realty website in teh MN area called Edina Realty. The map feature they offer of all teh MLS listings is amazing. So I have mostly used that. But I also kept my eye on Craigslsit for FSBOs (when we were looking for land and farm type places), which MN has a lot of because everybody and their grandpa has a cabin in the north...

[slackermom]

I do know a bunch of people who post links to their friends' house listings on Facebook. Those reverebate through social networks pretty quickly via friends of friends, and probably get more people in to an open house.  

[Guest]

If you wouldn't mind sharing, what did the sellers in your case care most about, and how did your realtor find that out?

 

They cared about closing date.  We have won 2 deals by knowing about this one item.  One guy wanted a last summer in the place, so we signed the deal in May to close in October.  That saved us $45K.

 

This one, they wanted out fast.  We had cash, as did the other offers, but we offered a fast closing date.

 

The other thing they cared about was inspection.  They really wanted to move fast, and inspections take time.  We waived our right to an inspection.  I know that sounds risky, but my dh is not stupid and we looked it over pretty carefully on one of our visits.  We talked about it and decided that there was nothing that we could see that would keep us from buying the house, even if an inspector DID find something.  So we took the risk an waived it.  Turns out the pool heater didn't work.  DH fixed that himself (yay YouTube).  The other thing that happened was that the piping to the house leaked.  We had to pay $10K to get that fixed...but the thing is, an inspector would not have found that.  It was buried in the ground.  The contractor used the wrong spec'd piping and every house in the neighborhood has had to do this.  Cheater.  The other thing that we didn't catch was that the sliding door to the potty scrapes.  It is badly set.  Well, in a hot market, we would not have said NO to this house based on the pool heater and the slider, so there ya go.  

 

Our realtor also found out what the other offers were coming in at and we offered $5,500 more (the other offers were coming in at $5000 more), but I doubt the $500 really made the difference.  It was the closing date and the inspection.

 

ETA:  If I were the seller, I would be royally ticked at my real estate agent for being such a blabbermouth.  We would have gone to $10K more.  

 

So, here is the REST OF THE STORY:  the sellers wanted out quickly because while they had "settled" on this house and poured a TON of money into it, their DREAM house had come up for sale and they wanted to buy THAT one.  So even with the racing increase of real estate prices and the uptick in our offer, they did not even come close to breaking even on this house...  (I call it a "flip house" but it was not intended to be so...). Well, anyway, they bought that house, started on the remodel/update, ended up in so much tension that within 1.5 years they were divorced and had to sell that property.  

 

In the meantime, we have a pool we didn't want but have come to enjoy, a really decent house, and wonderful neighbors.  

 

I have also had friends who got a house in a hot market simply by offering the sellers a two-month rent-back so they would have time to find their own new house, and pay cash.  

[Amy in NH]

The mls for the state I'm buying in.

[Ewe Mama]

Zillow is not very accurate, based on first-hand experience. They have our current house as 4 bedrooms, 1 bath, and 1400 square feet. Ummmm, it has 4 bedrooms, 4 full baths, and is 2600 square feet, and has been that way for at least 12 years. We've been living here for 8.5 years and I checked Zillow the other day. Their info is still incorrect.

[The Girls' Mom]

Zillow has some issues.  (it is actually part of my job right now to update Zillow listings for our realtors, and it can be kind of glitchy).  I do highly recommend getting a buyers agent.  They have access to listings before they hit the market (which in my local market can be essential).  They can also find out more information about a particular home than you can (generally), and can help cut down on wasted showings.  Some houses look great online, but not so great in person...and photos don't convey smells! lol.  

[Rachel]

When we are just at the thinking about buying stage I use our local MLS, then look at zillow to see if there are pictures from a previous time on the market and our local Property Administration for sales history.

 

When we get serious we have a realtor.

[vonfirmath]

We used redfin to find the house we have now

 

YEs, we had a realtor who sent us listings. And occasionally I'd use what he gave me and check redfin on it. But overall, for finding the house, I found redfin MUCH more useful.  Our realtor more than made his money on the tips he gave us about neighborhood/houses, the negotiation process, advice on dealing with the inspection report, and keeping the process moving forward after we had "won" a house nad before the contract was signed.

 

[Aura]

It's interesting that no one has mentioned Trulia. I don't use Trulia, either :lol:  but I thought more people did. LOL I decided to stick with realtor.com because somehow they managed to get our location 100% accurate...which not even Google has managed to do!

[The Girls' Mom]

It's interesting that no one has mentioned Trulia. I don't use Trulia, either :lol:  but I thought more people did. LOL I decided to stick with realtor.com because somehow they managed to get our location 100% accurate...which not even Google has managed to do!

 

Trulia and Zillow are the same company, and feed from similar info.

[Guest]

We used redfin to find the house we have now

 

YEs, we had a realtor who sent us listings. And occasionally I'd use what he gave me and check redfin on it. But overall, for finding the house, I found redfin MUCH more useful.  Our realtor more than made his money on the tips he gave us about neighborhood/houses, the negotiation process, advice on dealing with the inspection report, and keeping the process moving forward after we had "won" a house nad before the contract was signed.

 

In our raging hot market, I think the value of the realtor is MUCH more in the negotiations and market knowledge than in finding houses to look at.  that is easy enough and maybe easier to do on your own because you don't have to keep explaining what you mean by a semi-open floor plan or divisions of living and private space.  We found our house on Redfin; our realtor didn't even see it until closing day.  But he totally earned his keep in the negotiations.

[wendy not in HI]

We are sort of looking right now, and I use a local mls listing site and Realtor.com.  For the local site, I generally just click the "new listings" search for my area to get an accurate view of what is available today.  I like the format of realtor.com better, but I compare their info to the local mls site, and the mls site seems to be slightly more updated - ie, realtor.com will list a home as Active, while the mls will show it is contingent a day or so before realtor.com get's the info.

 

I also check on zillow and craiglist for For Sale by Owner homes.  I also like the price history on Zillow to see if the home was listed new 8 months ago, too.  

 

 

[Happy]

Zillow uses a third party to enter their info. Realtor.com updates directly from the MLS.

 

It depends on how the MLS board is structured--they are not all alike over the country. My MLS feeds to Zillow. I double check every aspect of the listing and manually correct as needed. Zillow is notorious for still showing sold properties from months before.

 

I can arrange an immediate alert for any buyer from my MLS system--I guess not all do that. I've taken buyers to new on the market properties within hours of it hitting the market.

[PrincessMommy]

I mostly do Redfin and Zillow.  I like Redfin because I can ask it to show me all houses without an HOA.  I also prefer to look at the map as we're looking at a very specific area that crosses a couple of zipcodes.

 

I have seen some odd stuff - so I usually run things by my realtor.   Last week there was a house that went up for sale in the neighborhood I'd really like to buy in.  The thing is the house was 300K more than any other house in the neighborhood (and 400K more than anything that has actually sold).  It was one of those tear down an old house, put up a 6000sq ft monstrosity... but still 300-400K more worth???  From the photos, the house definitely did not fit in the neighborhood... but that's their problem.   The listing disappeared after a day.  I assume it was some kind of mistake.  Or maybe the realtor is trying to have some kind of come to Jesus moment with the owners before going live.   :laugh:

Edited July 18, 2017 by PrincessMommy

[Carol in Cal.]

Realtor.com and Trulia first.

Driving around and looking at listings, open or not, to evaluate them.

Looking at *actual sale prices* to figure out the market.  After a while you notice patterns, like some agents always list nutsy high.

 

Once I've settled on something, asking my own realtor all the questions I have, at one time--I don't want to waste her time with a lot of questions over a period of weeks.  Trying to figure out with her what the seller really wants--what are the priorities?  A couple of times I've been able to make contact with the seller myself, and I always think that is helpful if possible.   Being very straight in negotiations.  Being willing to walk away if necessary.

[Χά�ων]

Zillow = Looking for fun

 

A friend found our house and gave us a head up, but the buyer's agent helped us secure the contract. We found out later that they recieved bids for 25k above listing the first business day after it was listed.

 

The seller's agent screwed up by listing the Saturday on a holiday weekend and not doing an open house. Their loss our gain!! We would not have been able to afford this place had it entered a bidding war.