What is the best way to find a home?

<<>> Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

The best place to find new listings is via the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). This is a database of homes in your local area. You do not have direct access of this database, however realtors will provide you with access of a home buyer version that you can use or your realtor will email you listings that you’re interested in. These databases are recent as the realtors update this information on a daily bases.

Real Estate websites

The next best way to find new listings is via real estate websites. These sites are updated regularly and will provide more accurate information than booklets. But before you make a bid on the property, ask your realtor to look it up and check to be sure that that it is the correct price. Many times, I’ve seen several realtors trying to sell the same property for different prices. I’ve also seen one realtor list the home at different prices to see which price will sell first.

Some real estate websites are used to find free home values for homes using statistical models and other methods. These databases will offer homes for sale in your area and will allow you look through photos of homes and realtors websites for home listed for sale in your area. This is a small list of websites below. For a larger list of websites, search your favorite search engine.

www.unitedcounty.com

www.realestate.yahoo.com

www.zillow.com

www.realestateabc.com

www.trulia.com

www.ebay.com

www.craigslist.com

Real estate companies offer realtors an opportunity to list homes exclusively in their databases. Sometimes, these larger companies will list homes exclusively to avoid MLS fees, so these web sites may be good places to look for homes that you may not find in the local multiple listing databases. Any real estate companies in you area may provide a good source of listings. In my area, there were some larger local companies that played a dominant role in the real estate market, so try and search for other companies in your area that may have good databases of new, exclusive homes listed in their database.

www.remax.com

www.coldwellbanker.com

www.windimere.com

www.realtor.com is a website that can be used by the public that is offered by the National Association of Realtors. This database offers one of the largest selections of listings that can be easily accessed by the public. This website combines many different real estate listings from multiple companies. I would consider this one of the better websites to locate listings of homes.

Driving around your chosen neighborhood

Find a market area that you like and drive around collecting information about homes for sale in this area and asking people in your market area if they know of anyone that may be considering selling their home. I’ve talked to several people that have found a home this way. Many times, this is one way to find a good deal, because the home has not been listed or the price has not been set by a realtor or other professionals. But the buyer should be aware that just because it is being sold by an owner does not mean it is a good deal. Make sure you do your research. I’ve see case after case of homeowners who thought that they were getting a good deal because it was a FSBO. As it turns out, they paid top price for their new home.

Real estate booklets

The real estate booklets that you find at local grocery stores have lots of photos of homes and realtors. In a market when homes are selling in two days to one month, these books are already out of date when they get placed on the shelf. This is the reason why they are one of the worst ways to find a home.

For sale by owner sites

There are a lot of these types of sites on the internet. I’ve reviewed several of these sites. Many times it is difficult to find enough homes to please my interest of looking at homes. The shear lack of homes on these sites discourages me to stay on these web sites for very long. If you find a home that you like on one of the FSBO websites, make sure you cross reference this home with others in the same area with other websites so that you can fully get a good selection of comparable sales in your area. This is important for one reason. The more choices you have, the better decision that you’ll make when buying your home.

Here is a small list of FSBO websites you may want to check out. Go to your favorite search engine and I’m sure you’ll find more.

www.forsalebyowner.com

ww.fsbo.com

www.owners.com

www.allthelistings.com

www.homesbyowner.com