No this post is NOT about home value estimates. It is about how these national sites are making home searching more difficult. In this computer age where everyone relies on the Internet for information, it’s unfortunate that some online Portland real estate search information can be misleading. With the vast amount of time you have to spend house hunting to find a home you love, you don’t want to waste any of it on properties that aren’t even available. Or worse yet, are you missing a HUGE chunk of the available listings?
Beware of the faulty data when house hunting online:
- 30% of the Listings are Missing? What the heck?? – Zillow and Trulia rely on brokers to submit their listings to their site. The MLS associations have made this data unavailable for purchase. Well guess what, 1/3 of the brokers DON”T submit their listings. So if you use these sites for your home search, you are missing out!
- Errors – It’s impossible for nationwide real estate websites to manage and fact check all of the information posted to their pages, so inaccuracies often happen — such as wrong price points or incorrect home descriptions. Follow up with a Portland real estate agent, if you’re seriously interested in a property.
- History hiccups – Check with an agent to find out how long a house has truly been on the market. If a seller has switched agencies or removed the property from the market for a period of time, the house could appear to be newly listed based on its official number of days on market.
- Out-of-date information – Agents market many homes at once, and while they might reprint fliers for an open house or relay current information to inquiring buyers, they could completely forget to update the online information. MLS rules allow 4 days for these changes to be made. Don’t fall in love with a pending home.
- Old listings – Be careful about spending time on a wild goose chase. Properties that have already sold are often still listed online. While this may be an intentional ploy to get you to call an agency, most agents are just too busy and forget to update every syndicated listing.
The Internet has made searching for homes and gathering house-hunting information much easier. Just be careful, employ an agent to thoroughly research the history and neighborhood before making an offer on Portland real estate.
If you’re interested in purchasing a home, let me do the time-consuming house hunting for you. I don’t send automated email updates, rather I hand pick homes that meet your criteria on a daily basis.