Triangle Home Searcher Resources

By adam
09/06/2011   Comments Off on Triangle Home Searcher Resources

Driving around looking for homes is silly. No matter how much you enjoy driving, if you are looking for a good deal, using a client gateway is an excellent way to make sure you see every deal as it becomes available. Based on your AREA/Sub-AREA choices and other Search Criteria we should be able to find lots of suitable homes.

Location! Location! Location!

Please use the following MAPS to choose your search location:

Once you have decided WHERE you want to live it is time to decide what houses you would like to see based on features such as:

  • Listing Price
  • Age
  • Single-Family, Town-home or Condo
  • Minimum Square Footage
  • Minimum Bedrooms/Minimum Bathrooms
  • Garage, Carport, Parking
  • Master Up or Down
  • Deed Restrictions or Restrictive Covenants
  • Amenities, Utilities and any other feature can be searched for.

My favorite way to search for my own purposes is with MAP SEARCH!

StettenRealty.com ‘s MAP SEARCH uses a special software, that essentially gives you access to all available current and past MLS data. Each authenticated user can search 100% of the MLS data. This includes days on market, sold-data for the last 3 years, and is searchable directly from the map and filterable to your specific setting. You can use the VOW feature as you search for homes on any site to supplement that data.

When I get a few listings in my email I open up FireFox and these tabs in my browser:

  • Stetten Realty – Map Search
  • Google Maps – Street View, Satellite View, Summer Satellite Images, Good Map to compare to the dense Stetten Realty Map Search
  • Bing Maps – Bird’s Eye View (Rotatable Winter Helicopter View) Great for looking in back yards, getting the lay of the land.
  • Zillow – Zillow is a nifty tool for estimating the value of properties and it shows a number for every house. Take with Grain of Salt Please! Their “Zestimates” are off by as much as 9 percent.
  • County Records – Wake County’s “Real Estate Search” is top-notch. Durham’s is good. Chapel Hill’s works sometimes but not all. Good luck with the rest of the state they are coming along slowly. New Hanover’s is decent, you have to use additional resources to make the county websites useful in most cases. Johnston’s county has the funniest drawings made out of text. =—–=—–25—–=—–=—+ etc.

As you search, please keep a record of interesting MLS numbers. An MLS number is 7 digits and the higher the number the more recent the listing has been added to the system.