mrssoltan
LIF Infant
Member since 6/10 49 total posts
Name: joanne
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Starting the House Hunt for real
Where did all of you start looking other than mlsli.com ? I have been using mls and found some nice houses but wanted to see other sites as well.
Also, where do you find lists of open houses to go to?
tia
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Re: Starting the House Hunt for real
Any listed home is going to be on mlsli, and all of the other sites include those same listings, plus certain exclusive listings of real estate companies that are not yet on mlsli, if they choose to market them on the website. (Some real estate companies have exclusive listings that they don't put on mls, because they want to sell it in house rather than give other agents at outside firms an opportunity to sell.)
If you check out my site, http://cbraun.dallow.com, you can run and save property searches on there for any properties listed on mlsli, as well as exclusive listings of my real estate office.
Some of my customers also like realtor.com and redfin.
I don't know if you have an agent, but if not, you should definitely find one that you feel comfortable working with and use their expertise. The internet is a great tool, especially when you are first starting your search, but it can be overwhelming and is not always the best source of information (for example, sometimes houses are no longer available but are still on some websites).
A real estate agent can quickly find out for you the status of the properties you are interested in and get you in to see them. A real estate agent may also know of properties that you don't know of, such as new listings coming on the market. I preview a lot of houses, so I may see something that would be perfect for a customer, and that customer would totally overlook it online (because the pictures or descriptions weren't great, or it somehow didn't fall into their search criteria). It is definitely to your advantage to talk to an agent about what you are looking for and let them do some of the work for you. Also, not all houses have open houses, so if you just plan on getting into houses that way, you will only see a fraction of the houses on the market.
Feel free to contact me if I can do anything to help you with your search -- no obligation, I am happy to answer questions!
Have fun - house hunting can be stressful, but overall, it's a lot of fun! Good luck.
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