August 3rd, 2007 by George
Data from Charleston Trident Association of Realtors.
Median home price is up 5% over 2006 so far in 2007.
Data is year to date as of July 25, 2007.
July 29th, 2007 by George
The Hunt
Now it’s time to hit the pavement, or Web, in search of a new home
Your first step here is to figure out what city or neighborhood you want to live in. (Remember the old saw about “location, location, location.”)
For overall demographics and data on metropolitan areas, you can visit a city site like CNNMoney.com’s annual Best Places to Live list. For more detailed neighborhood information, check out sites like dontrenew.com, Yahoo! Real Estate, Homepages.com or NeighborhoodScout for comprehensive school and demographic information on a number of communities. Look for signs of economic vitality: a mixture of young families and older couples, low unemployment and good incomes.
Pay special attention to districts with good schools (high teacher-student ratios and graduation rates are among the hallmarks), even if you don’t have school-age children. When it comes time to sell, you’ll find that a strong school system is a major advantage in helping your home retain or gain value.
Try also to get an idea about the real estate market in the area. For example, if homes are selling close to or even above the asking price, that shows the area is desirable. Try Homegain.com, which is free, or Dataquick.com, which is available only to paid subscribers, to check out recent home sales.
Your real estate agent may also be able to show you listings. Incidentally, if you have the flexibility, consider doing your house hunt in the off-season — meaning, generally, the colder months of the year. You’ll have less competition and sellers may be more willing to negotiate.
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June 26th, 2007 by George
Jeez, I really despise writing that check every month for rent. None of the money goes to work for me, but merely goes to pay off my landlord’s mortgage. Not to mention, the appreiciation the landlord is seeing month-in and month-out on the property.
But, am I actually paying too much for rent, comparitively speaking? What are others in my area paying? Are there better deals out there that I don’t know about? Am I just wasting my money every month, when I could purchase a home and put my money to work for me?
Well, Rentometer has come to your aid. The rentometer website is a visual tool to help you decide just that.
Input your information into the rentometer homepage…
Simple input, simple interface. A few seconds later you get your results.
The results give you a range of rent rates in your area of interest. Low, High, and the median, and then compare what you are paying to those numbers.
Drawbacks:
The rentometer does not account for your particular location. Remember, you get what you pay for.
The rentometer does not account for number of bathrooms.
The rentometer is only as good as the information entered into it. It is only an approximate average of rent costs, and is not definitive, due to its drawbacks.
The rentometer does not account for amenities: pools, fitness centers, etc.
The rentometer is geared towards renters, therefore, you can imagine where their funding comes from.
But, for a cool visual tool and information resource, rentometer does it’s job. However, that being said, you still have to decide is it better to rent or buy (see dontrenew.com’s blog post on this matter).
June 20th, 2007 by George
Maybe…
But if zillow has it’s way, you will hear, know and care. But at the same time, the way it’s being touted, you may think the endtimes are here and the rapture is upon us…
“Zillow has created a real estate revolution” - Fortune Magazine, Feb 2007
Zillow was created in 2006 by a couple of former Microsoft execs who also founded the little website expedia. They wanted to create a real estate website that can give people valuations. As you may expect, many real estate agents were not too eager to support this idea, because that is part of their service to you that is often referenced.
But really, what is zillow, how is it different and what can it do for you?
Zillow is unique for a few reasons:
It is a website designed to be beneficial to sellers, buyers, owners and professionals
You can take an area/city/town and look at the average real estate prices prices (e.g. North Charleston, SC) by going to the map& search function
134k in North Charleston, 133k Ladson, etc. - averages
When you do a search of a specific area, different colored flags (red, blue, yellow) represent homes that are for sale, have sold or…Make Me Move
Make Me Move is a homeowners opportunity to tell the world “Hey, my house is not for sale (at this time), but if you offer me $X dollars, I will move right on out!”
Make Me Move:
One of the coolest features that Zillow has is it’s Zestimate. This is where you can spend some time being an online voyuer.
When I look at an area at street level, Zillow will give me a Zestimate of the homes value in that area.
Its important to note that these Zestimates are just that, zestimates… I mean, estimates.
As the Wall Street Journal said in a February 2007 article, “when Zillow is bad, it can be terrible — off the mark by more than 25% on one in 10 homes. In one case it was off by $2 million.”
Check out Zillow.com. Spend some time on the website searching areas of interest to you and get a feel for the values of the area. You can see what neighboring areas are worth (which can help or harm the value of the area you’re looking at) and if you are in the ballpark with your budget. Zillow, just another tool to help you in the homebuying process.
