Finding out the conditions of the local real estate market is a prerequisite for any individual looking to buy a home. But unless you hire a realtor, you’re mostly going to get a general feedback on your general inquiry regarding the current market conditions.
Fortunately, there are publicly available information that you can use as resources for your home buying decision.
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Local government offices
Financial data are just a segment of the total information accessible to the public in your local county or city government office. Ask for financial reports that detail tax collections or expenditures, rate of increase in home values against wage rise. From these pieces of information, you can deduce certain conclusions about how your local market is doing and how it would do if certain trends continue or halt in its tracks.
Local real estate brokerage association
Real estate firms are excellent sources of statistical information, both for annual and monthly records. These firms’ sites are common go-to places not just for listings but also for monthly and yearly data, research trends, and special studies that could be helpful in guiding you make informed decisions for your home purchase.
However, some of these sites may not properly reflect the totality of local activity.
Current and recent home sales
Searching for new home sales is as easy as connecting to the web. It’s become easier to do your own real estate investigation, thanks to the ever-expanding reach of the internet. You don’t only find new home sales, you will also be able to find homes that are recently purchased, listing histories for individual properties, features of each listed homes, square footage, offering prices, and photos.
Average home prices and units sold will tell you much about an area’s real estate demand. Furthermore, there are apps and sites that will let you filter areas based on criminal records, number of great schools, walkability, etc.
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Local media
It may take some piecing together but some seemingly irrelevant community news and events may play a role in how the local real estate market in your region will fare in the near future. New factory offering new jobs? That could haul in more competition for the area’s housing market. The same with new public constructions, which will be better for the community and attract more people in the area.
Similarly, bad news will have negative feedback on the market.
Crime
One of the most direct and common measures of an area’s favorability for a real estate purchase is its crime rate. Safety is one of the first in a home buyer’s list so it makes a lot of sense for people to be wary of neighborhoods that hold bad reputation.
Unfortunately, many of these publicly available information can be deceptive and sometimes just plainly wrong. Experts say that many times, these can lead to an over-simplistic or incomplete analysis that will wrongly skew a buyer’s perception of an area or region.
Open houses
Beyond the figures and the statistics, it may be worth your while to actually pay these homes a visit. It’s a good way to assess an area, the homes’ conditions, and meet brokers in person who can tell you about the region’s real estate trends.
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