Dunnan on Dollars

  Personal Finance Tips from Nancy Dunnan

Finding Real Estate...
To Buy, Sell Or Rent

September 12, 2008 - The current slump in the world of houses, condos, co-ops and apartments may mean you're thinking about buying, selling or renting property.

Rentals

Let's start with rentals...an area of coverage that is often neglected in favor of sales. These first two sites are a useful beginning and should be combined with the help of newspaper and brokerage listings.

1) HotPads.com not only focuses on rentals but also has information for home buyers and sellers. It is a map-based search service based on geographical areas. As we go to press, HotPads has about 175,000 rental lists (and some 2 million sale listings) - all across the country. I recommend beginning here if you're at the "should I buy or rent" stage.

Pay particular attention to the "Rent Ratio Heat Map" which shows the areas in which it's better to rent than buy.

HotPads also has a foreclosure map with details about those listings.

2) Realtor.com, which is the official site of the National Association of Realtors, also has properties for sale and rent around the country. The listings include valuable school information, such as how far the house or apartment is from a particular school and the school's rating as given by Great Schools ( www.greatschools.net ).

For Buyers & Sellers

Overall, the following three sites are somewhat similar. I've highlighted the distinguishing features and listed them in alphabetical order.

3) PropertyShark.com leans more in the direction of multifamily and commercial properties and therefore is particularly useful to those interested in real estate as an investment. It covers properties in Austin, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington (DC).

The site gives details about previous sales, taxes, land improvements, if any sexual offenders live in the area, environmental issues and zoning details.

Caution: Use is free only between 3pm and 6pm, Monday through Friday.

4) Redfin.com is the only site of the ones discussed in this column that is also an online brokerage firm. It is a map based search service and in addition to properties for sale, it lists foreclosures. Redfin covers Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington (DC). New York City is expected to join sometime early in 2009.

You can find the most expensive and the least expensive property in a given neighborhood. Another unique feature: it shows how many times a listing price has been changed and how long the property has been on the market.

5) Zillow.com has a great "Make Me Move" function that enables you to put your own home on the site and list a sales price that would prompt you to actually take action and sell! The "Zestimate" tool gives estimated values for properties not on the market. Zillow is also helpful if you want to live near something in particular, such as a train station, a school or a business.

- Nancy Dunnan

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If you want to suggest a column topic for Nancy, drop her a line.

Like what Nancy has to say? you might be interested in the new edition of her book:
How To Invest $50 To $5,000: The Small Investor's Step By Step Plan for Low-Risk, High-Value Investing