There are a variety of opportunities in the Phoenix real estate market for both buyers and sellers. If you're a prospective buyer click here for a full home search, or if you're considering placing your home on the market, get a free home value report, right here.
With over 95% of buyers starting their home search online, it's important to understand the limitations of sites such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com. While it may seem like an ideal place to start your search for Phoenix real estate, I'm going to point out a few reason its may not be.
For buyers:
- Often times people call me asking to see some of the houses they found online. But once consulting the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), I find that those houses are either under contract or no longer available.
- Online home search tools often don't have a direct feed to the MLS or they have a delayed feed. This means that you may be looking at out-of-date listings.
- These sites sell your information for ad revenue. By simply showing interest on these sites, your information is sent to agents who may not be the most qualified to sell your home.
- The estimates these sites provide are typically inaccurate. I've found that once I comp out the house of interest, the online evaluation may be off by as much as $100,000.
- They use a computer generated algorithm to price your home. They're not taking into account the many factors that could affect the real value of your home.
