Then and now

A decade ago, a property search would have started at a local real estate agent’s office or simply driving around town. At the agent’s office, you spent an afternoon flipping through pages of active property listings on the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS). After selecting the properties of interest, you spent many weeks viewing each property until you found the right one. Finding market data  Immobilienmakler Heidenheim that would allow you to estimate the asking price would take more time and a lot more driving, and you still may not be able to find all the information you need to really deal with one Familiarize yourself with fair market value.

Nowadays, most real estate searches start on the internet. A quick keyword search on Google for location will likely bring you thousands of results. When you discover an interesting property on a real estate website, you can usually view photos online and maybe even take a virtual tour. You can then check other websites, such as B. Visit the local county appraiser to get an idea of the property’s value, see what the current owner paid for the property, check property taxes, get census data, school information and even find out what shops are within walking distance – all without leaving your home!

While the resources on the web are handy and helpful, using them properly can be challenging due to the amount of information and the difficulty in verifying its accuracy. At the time of writing, a search for “Denver real estate” returned 2,670,000 websites. Even a location-based real estate search can easily return thousands of websites. With so many resources online, how can an investor use them effectively without getting bogged down or dealing with incomplete or bad information? Believe it or not, understanding how the real estate business works offline makes it easier to understand online real estate information and strategy.

The real estate business

Properties are typically bought and sold either through a licensed real estate agent or directly from the owner. The vast majority is bought and sold through real estate agents. (We use “broker” and “agent” to refer to the same professional.) This is due to their real estate knowledge and experience and, at least historically, their exclusive access to a database of active properties for sale. Accessing this database of real estate listings was the most efficient way to search for properties.

The MLS (and CIE)

The database of residential, land and smaller income-producing properties (including some commercial properties) is commonly referred to as the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). In most cases, only properties listed by member real estate agents can be added to an MLS. The primary purpose of an MLS is to allow member real estate agents to make offers of compensation to other member agents when they find a buyer for a property.

these purposes did not include enabling the direct release of MLS information to the public; Times are changing. Today, most MLS information is available to  Immobilienmakler Heidenheim  the public in many different forms directly over the Internet.

Commercial property listings are also displayed online, but aggregated commercial property information is elusive. Larger MLS often operate a commercial information exchange (CIE). A CIE is similar to an MLS, but the agents who enter the entries into the database are not required to offer any particular type of compensation to the other members. Compensation is negotiated outside the CIE.