Online Real Estate Information
There are a number of statistics, usually tied to sales data, available for free on the internet. Houses for sale, at one time, were the property of the Multiple Listing Services. I’ll do another post about them and how they collect the sales data.
The most notable provider of Real Estate information, online, to the public, is redfin. They are a Seattle based company. Zillow is another Seattle based company that records sales data. Between the two a person can get a good glimpse of the market place. Many people first shop online for a home to purchase. The last per cent age quoted was 87% of people in the market for a home start the search on the internet.
The search for homes on the internet is so available that virtually every Real Estate site you look at has a search function. The new thing is the forums that go along with the properties you search for. In those forums, or blogs, you can find even more information about schools, communities, crime rates, even critiques of homes you may have seen.
I’ve already listed a couple of Real Estate blogs that I follow and on those sites you can find a number of links to other blogs. On this site I have a few links about Seattle. You can, in an afternoon, find a house, and all of the local information. It’s amazing what’s available on line.