The Internet: Sites for researching real estate
These sites find property for sale and offer tools for pulling up information on mortgages, demographics, schools, and price comparisons.
Zillow.com is “wildly popular” because it reliably turns up the most homes in a search. Individual listings can be “slim on details.” But the site features special tools to study neighborhoods, and users looking for a mortgage can “anonymously enter personal information to shop for rates and terms.”
Realtor.com not only turns up a decent number of properties but also offers plenty of specifics. The Find a Neighborhood tool can pull up such details as addresses, amenities, and “commentary from real estate agents,” as well as “demographic, economic, and school data.”
Trulia.com is “arguably the most feature-rich site.” The streamlined selection of properties “displays photos of the homes via Google Street Maps.” But the site also illuminates trends and creates graphs to show “how a home’s price compares with similar for-sale and recently sold properties.”
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Source: Los Angeles Times
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