Half of Plainfielders own their own homes. Chances are very high that there is a real estate transaction in your future -- buying, selling or both. For that reason, a lot of people like to keep an eye out for what's going on in the market.
The Internet has changed the landscape of real estate dramatically. Last Sunday's NY Times had an article about some of the online services.
A COOL TOOL
PT is particularly intrigued by Trulia.com. It has far and away the most, and it seems the most useful, information that PT has come across.
Be aware, however, of what the terms you see used mean --
Let's use Plainfield for an example. Using the 07060 ZIP, 193 properties were returned -- from $159K to $2+M. (Note that 07060 returns NORTH Plainfield properties as well.)
Once you type in the location or ZIP code you are interested in, you get a page with a map and clickable listings on the same page -- sorted any way you wish: price, bedrooms, style, etc.
You can click on the map and drag it to reposition the view or use the sliders to increase/decrease the zoom level.
Hovering over any pushpin on the map, you get a popup with the address and price. Click for more info. Or click on any listing in the side panel to get more details on that property.
Once you get to Trulia's property sheet, you will notice you can also get the Realtor's online listing data, which has even more complete details on this particular property.
But that's only the beginning.
Under the COMMUNITY INFO section, you will find tabs for everything from house prices to crime to community links.
 |  |  |
| Home prices (Click on any image to enlarge) | Year built | Crime statistics |
There is also a SCHOOLS OVERVIEW, comparing local schools achievements with the state averages. And clickable checkboxes which turn on or turn off the locations of school buildings on the map.
USE WITH CAUTION
All this is truly useful, but a note of caution is in order.
It is easy when online to fall into thinking what you are seeing is the whole picture. It is not always so.
PT was intrigued with the Plainfield map, but the Watchung Avenue area especially caught his attention. Not because of what was there, but because of what was NOT.
PT was SURE he had noticed For Sale signs on Watchung Avenue, yet there were no pushpins at all. A quick drive-by netted eleven properties, shown as with a red * in PT's detail below.
So, while sites such as Trulia supply a lot of useful information, you'll never go wrong hopping in the car and checking out what's going on with your own two eyes. At least until it's all available in real time and totally complete -- which is the goal these sites are aiming for in the long run.
But it's still worth a spin right now.
New York Times: "Forget Gimmicks: Buyers Want Numbers"
Some sites --
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1 comments:
Another great place for real estate listings as well as foreclosure information that wasn't mentioned is a site by PropertyMaps. It's been a lot of help.
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