According to the 2008 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 87 percent of home buyers used the Internet to search for homes in the past year. That's up steadily from 84 percent in 2007, 80 percent in 2006.
There are some many pitfalls and oversights in the Internet searching that can make purchasing real estate a nightmare! The Internet is a great resource for shopping, but when it comes time to view homes and negotiate contracts, it is important to have a professional Realtor familiar with the local market working with you.
The Internet provides a wealth of resources and information. So much so, that one tends to go in to overload! When beginning your exploration for a new property, do not search for broad terms such as ‘real estate’ as the volume of results will be staggering. If you know the city you plan to relocate to start by learning about the area - the schools, crime stats, the shopping, medical facilities etc.
When searching for homes utilize preferred web sites such as Realtor.com or a local Realtor web site that has a link to the MLS. Other popular web sites such as zillo or trulia only offer a subset of the total listings available. For a property to be included on one of these sites, Realtors have to individually upload them. Therefore the statistics on these sites are skewed because they do not have all the information available to create reliable statistics.
With the great resources available today you can become an ‘educated’ buyer. At any time during your 'shopping' process, a professional Realtor can assit you with a local MLS feed and also be an excellent resource to provide direction for your web search. The maps, photos, virtual tours, videos of a home give you a general idea of the home, but seeing the neighborhood and actually entering in to the home gives you the true ‘feeling’ of the home and surrounding community. Find a professional Realtor to assist you in your decision process. Realtors are familiar with the area, the homes and the recent sales statistics. He/she will be able to provide detailed comparables, tax records and sales history for the property(s) you are specifically interested in. Once you decide which property would be best, your Realtor will present your offer and negotiate to ensure you receive the best price. He/she will then open the escrow process, schedule for a home inspection, negotiate your home repair requests based upon the inspection report and follow your escrow process through all stages until the final closing.
Congratulations' you have a new home!
We specialize in Scottsdale real estate and the greater Phoenix metro area real estate. We have assisted both buyers and sellers with their real estate needs. Feel free to contact us with any of your real estate questions. Our toll free number is 866-464-2140 and our email is garyandclaudia@cox.net
Actually Realt or.com does not receive all MLS listings. Do a search for "NWMLS stops feeds". You'll see many MLSs do not provide all listings.
Less than 1/2 of all licensees in the US are in any MLS.
You need to find local agent web sites for the best info. Many agents have Non-MLS listings on their sites, too.
Wow, Heath you read my blog quickly as I just posted it. Thanks for the correction! Realtor.com is the only ourside site that our MLS sends it's listings to. I will definitely revise the blog to reflect your comments.
How is life and the real estate market in Cape Cod thee days?