Like most shoppers of any kind these days you’re most likely to start your house hunting (or land, or commercial property) on the internet. Here are some useful pointers to help you drill down to a good fit on that property choice.

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  • Don’t spend countless hours trolling over the pretty photos only to find out that the home is not in an area you desire. Use the advanced setting and filter down your selection.
  • Or, better yet use one of the map searches that allow you to view homes and filter selected parameters like price and size while you hover over the map area.
  • Many sites are mobile ready or have mobile apps that will let you drive around with your smart phone and view homes in the area. Zillow’s (one I personally like – just look out for those pesky agents trying to get you to use them- that’s how Zillow makes its money) app lets you take pictures and save them along with the listing information and save them to your favorites. This way you may add some negative photos to better reflect the reality of the junkyard next door.
  • If you’re really bargain hunting most search engines will let you filter by foreclosures and bank owned. Also keep in mind that your RoR agent will have access to bank owned and other information that might not yet be on the public search sites.
  • Your agent can create an automated search that will notify you of homes for sale that come on the market immediately by email and sometimes text message. Most of the major national search engines such as Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and others have this capability also. The big advantage is that our Agents usually have information that is updated much faster from their local MLS. Much faster than the trickle down that happens with the big guys. So, if you’ve been hunting for a while and really cannot seem to get the “jump” on that perfect property, let your “RoR” member agent get you on a listing manager account – it’s free.

“You can have tons and tons of different properties. But you have to think, ‘What’s really important for me and how do I find the properties that match that?'”, says Lee Clancy, vice president of consumer products for Trulia.

A Little sidebar: Zillow is buying Trulia for 3.5 Billion. In my opinion, Zillow’s purchase is based mostly on accessing the “Market Leader” real estate agents and their network of local MLS listing sites. Be wary of those recommended agents on these major search sites. These huge sites are spending millions developing great places to check out properties but they probably are not a good place to choose an agent to show you a property. Top positions of agents are based on how much they pay and have little to nothing to do with their qualifications.