I’ve been house hunting for the last few months and I’m sorely disappointed. Not just with the state of the market but particularly with the state of online advertisements.
There days there are very elaborate web sites set up and designed to help people house hunt. They include more information than ever, links to information on neighborhoods and schools even crime statistics and comparisons of recently sold. compareable properties.
Why is it, then, that they STILL use descriptions like “3br 1ba gam c/a fp lroom, new kit upd elec deck nice lot”.
I’m seriously baffled. I understand that the print version of these ads with the price per word still exist but please. If I were trying to sell something as substantial as a house I think I’d take a minute and work up a clearer description. My favorite part is the often confusing use or lack of use of comas in these ads.
I’m also amazed that, in the majority of these ads, only one property photo is used. Or better yet only inside shots are used.
In my opinion what I would ideally like to see from these ads:
A). A proper description of the structure, grounds and any necessary facts up front (ie: need to move by <x>)
B). At least 3 CLEAR photos of the property front/back/side and preferrably more including the inside
C). A thorough listing of the house features including details of the house mechanics and detailed room dimmensions.
I’ve made an inordinate number of unnecssary trips to houses that completely defied their descriptions. House hunting is tough enough to begin with. Is it too much to ask for more info up front?
I don’t have a particular web sit to bash as they are pretty much all handles the same way. Purhaps this should be in the pit.
The three sites I frequent the most are realtor.com, ziprealty.com and I soldmyhouse.com. They each have features that are good but I really want great features. I imagine they do the best they can within reason. Enough to entice a buyer without also disuading one too. By that I mean, if someone has a dog of a property you want to put the best face on it. That’s usually done by omission rather than inclusion.
Therein lies the problem, I think. For some reason, these websites seem to think that “3D interactive video” is the logical next step after “swm fp ft wtf.”
Things are getting a lot better than they were 4-5 years ago when we were house-hunting, however. For example, this listing from Foxton’s is pretty detailed: http://www.foxtons.com/asp/tab/buyers/staticlistings/yhd30287.html
But of course, Foxton’s isn’t a typical realty service, so maybe a good online listing is all you get. I dunno. Even the regular listings at Realtor.com are better than they were.
Probably because all the stuff for the website is just taken from what they already have for the listings & print ads, and nobody takes the effort to rewrite it for online use.
Plus the fact that for those in the realty business, they use those abbreviations so much that they don’t even think of them as hard-to-understand – it’s the daily jargon they live with.
P.S. I haven’t bought a house for over 20 years, but I had no trouble understanding all those abbreviations you listed.
I used realtor.com for my home search 3 years ago, but really the best source is your real estate agent, who has access to the most up-to-date listings, and can get more detailed information for you. If you have an agent, you should use them for their expertise and knowledge of the market. If you get a good agent, it’s definitely worth paying the commission for.
Also, in your point “need to move by <x>” if you’re talking about the sellers need to move by…a realtor who is listing the house has a committment to their client (the seller) and will generally not be disclosing that type of information without the express request of their client. Closing dates generally aren’t talked about until an offer is made.
And as t-bonham said, the info is usually taken from the Multiple Listing Service (for example) which are intended for other real estate agents.
When I was looking, I regularly sent my agent a list of homes I wanted to see from realtor.com and she looked them up to make sure they were still on the market and really did match my criteria. Of course, she was able to suggest additional homes that were on the MLS, that weren’t listed on realtor.com yet. I ultimately ended up buying a house that wasn’t listed on realtor.com.
All the high-tech stuff mentioned in the OP (neighborhood info, price and crime statistics, area map) can be automated. Just feed the address into a database and you can get all that. Detailed description and photos for each house require actual work.
I can’t remember where the online ad for our house was (we found it through a realtor, since we were out of state and didn’t know much about the city), but it had 360 virtual tours of the front and back yards, kitchen, dining room, and living room. I think it also had dimensions, etc., but I don’t really remember. We had, after all, already made an offer on the place by the time we saw the ad.