Zillow trulia etc, have you used them?

[greenhills]

Ok, so to start I'll explain that about 2 years ago we (my boyfriend and I) moved back to the city our families are based out of to raise our son. When we did that we got started looking for a house to buy with the help of a buyer's agent that we were introduced to by a friend. Looked at lots of crap, finally found a house that was perfect, only one that met our criteria. Long story short it didn't work out so we gave up frustrated about how the agent wasn't really helping and went on vacations and paid off a lease on a house and shelved the idea.

Enter my dad about 6 months later, who was interested in helping us find a place so we started looking at different real estate web sites. Actually have found a few places over time that seemed worth investigating. However, when we try to use contact information on said sites it never pans out, and an agent that is a family friend has told us that most of these places aren't the types of places you wouldn't want to buy & majority are "investment" properties and blah blah, she can show us her list of houses she is selling etc.


So, basically, if you have utilized these websites, how did you do it? Should we go on a hunt for a better buyer's agent that will work with us using these resources? Or will direct contact through these sites ever pan out?

[Kalmado]

I've always used trulia and zillow too see an address and what information it can provide if any. While house shopping, I prefer Realtor.com. I've never called any of the realtors listed as we have realtor friends that help us look at houses, negotiate, etc. I'd say, find a better agent.

[Brill Weave]

Wife and I are house hunting currently. Our real estate agent(which also happens to be my best friend's mother) sends us new listings as they come available. She usually links us the realtor's website page. We use Zillow just to check on things like square footage etc. Zillow and Trulia are good as secondary tools. It can also help you tell if a house has recently been flipped. Check the last sold for section and if it's dramatically lower then you're looking at a house that someone is probably trying to flip. But they aren't able to replace a good realtor. If you have a family friend that is a realtor I would strongly suggest that you her up on her offer. Remember, she's a family friend. If she gets you in a shithole of a house she's going to have to hear about it as long as your family is friends with her. So she has incentive to do right by you guys beyond the normal making money standpoint.

Big things to check for. Check how old the furnace is, check to make sure the electrical switch box has unused panels, check the basement walls for any bowing, cracks going through brick are extremely bad(cracks going along seams are ok), always look for moisture in corners of the garage, basement, laundry room. Be very wary of houses that are freshly painted on the inside, ESPECIALLY the basement. The paint covers up moisture, mold, cracks, etc. So you can't really tell what you're looking at.

Don't get discouraged. House hunting is a colossal pain in the dick. We've looked at probably 35 houses now. We liked maybe 5 of them and my father in law found structural flaws with all of them(yay having a former carpenter/contractor in family!)

[greenhills]

Pain in the dick is an under exaggeration.

[Skjie]

Do you have mls in the states? If so, ask your family member to see their version of it. Lots of things/searches that normal people can't get.

[archibaldcrane]

Bought a house in December after searching for 9 months and bidding on 7 properties. Had a realtor who sent us listing in our general guidelines, but I used the fuck out of redfin.com to spot potential places to see as well, forwarded them to my realtor so she could set up showings. tl;dr redfin.com was invaluable for our housing search.

[Dolmen]

We're currently in the house hunting process, and have also been using the hell out of Redfin.com. We've been working with one of their agents as well, and the process is going smoother than expected. The nice thing about Redfin is they give you part of their commission and normally put it toward closing costs. Redfin isn't available everywhere though.

As for Zillow, we've been using it to get some ideas of house values when the Redfin listing has it blocked.

[Anakron]

I bought a place about 4 years ago, and had my own agent, but I found that the properties he showed me largely didn't match my tastes. So, towards the end, I just searched various sites (mostly ones already mentioned here) and sent him the listings I wanted to see. That worked out much better and saved everyone time.

[jillkipnis]

@greenhills, it's important to find the a Realtor who understands what you are looking for and can provide you with local expertise. I would suggest using Realtor.com's Find a Realtor tool if you're interested in finding another Realtor in your area. It's always a good idea to get a referral from friends or family, and also to interview several Realtors before deciding on the person who best fits with you.

From there, Realtor.com offers millions of listings across the country. What sets Realtor.com apart is the accuracy of its listing data. Realtor.com gets listings directly from 850+ MLS partners across the partner. And, more than 80% of those listings are updated every 15 minutes with everything from property status changes to price decreases. That means that the majority of listings are updated 96 times a day. The rest of the Realtor.com's listings are updated every 1 to 24 hours.

Good luck with your house search!

--Jill Kipnis, Community Builder, Realtor.com

[archibaldcrane]

Holy shit that just happened.

[Artemicon]

In a perfect world a buying realtor wouldn't be needed but its obvious in today's world it is...

My girlfriend and I used trulia and zillow to find homes we were interested in and took that information to a local realtor. Honestly our realtor showed us a bunch of shit that we weren't interested in and we pretty much had to find the one we were. He wasn't all bad but didn't really listen to us as much as he just tried to make a sale. I know all realtors aren't like that but you're there bread and butter and sometimes they lose sight of whats important to their clients.

tl;dr Trulia and Zillow, good tools. Need an actual buying realtor.

[Brill Weave]

Kind of on topic but if anyone needs a home inspection in the Pittsburgh tri state area I highly suggest House Master. My sister used them and raved about the guy they sent. We used them yesterday for the house inspection and the guy they sent over was fantastic. Spent four hours going over our house. Explained everything he found to us as he found it and what his suggestion would be to rectify it. Great company.