Local real estate agents can physically view the property, list homes like yours every day, know the neighborhoods and market trends, and https://www.braddockinvestmentgroup.com/ identify the unique characteristics of the property. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an online tool that can do all of that, so HomeLight can guide you to the next logical step if you want a professional opinion. Because Simple Sale has a network of cash buyers on its platform, partner-investors have a wide range of investment strategies, including fix-and-flip and buy-and-hold, all over the country. This enables Simple Sale to provide cash offers for a wide array of properties in different locations.
Finding Your Perfect Rental Home?
The company analyzes over 27 million real estate transactions and thousands of reviews to determine which agent is best for you based on your needs. For recommended properties, the site provides quick stats on the estimated after-rehab value, the estimated return on investment (ROI) after construction, cap rate, and gross yield. It allows users to search for foreclosure properties and auctions in addition to on-market listings with low prices or recently reduced prices. HomeLight’s Simple Sale website, for example, provides a great alternative solution for sellers who need to move quickly by facilitating cash offers on its platform.
Simple Sale is far from the only program out there that facilitates cash offers for homes, but it has a few advantages over most alternatives. When you request an offer, you’ll have the option of getting matched with an agent to learn more about how much you could get for your home on the open market. It provides access to market and deal finder tools, calculator and analysis tools for new properties, lease agreement templates, and property management software. Before deciding to move to a new place, it’s helpful to scope out the area you’re eyeing.
NAR data indicates that the typical FSBO home sold for $380,000 in 2023, compared to $435,000 for a home sale administered by a real estate agent. With rent prices continuing to soften nationwide, now is the time to start looking for your next place. A site like Apartments.com, which makes it easy to search for a wide array of rental listings, is a godsend.
Locating accessible rental housing can be a complicated and frustrating process. But ForRent.com, which is in the Apartments.com network, makes it easier by allowing users to filter listings by type, styles, and amenities. You can search for rentals with elevator or wheelchair access, or highlight specialties like income-restricted or senior housing. Additional tools can help you request a cash offer, check your home value, look up the quality of local schools, or chat with other investors about where to find your next income-generating property.
Trulia is owned by Zillow, and cannot be used to list a for-sale or rental property — you’ll have to go through Zillow to do that. That being said, it’s still a solid option for users looking to explore the neighborhoods they’re home shopping in. About 6% of recent home sales were for sale by owner (FSBO), meaning the sellers did not enlist the services of a real estate professional in the process. Some sellers choose this route to avoid paying agent commissions, though it’s been shown working with a top agent can help you maximize your sale price, helping to offset or exceed what you’d pay in commission. According to 2024 data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 90% of sellers and 88% of buyers enlisted the services of a real estate agent in their journey. However, with there being over three million active real estate licensees in the U.S., it can be challenging to know who to hire.
With most of its staff and content creators being military spouses, MilitaryByOwner is well-qualified and uniquely positioned to serve its customer base. The site provides statistics comparing how affordable or expensive a community is compared to the broader city. It also features comments from real residents about the perks and drawbacks of an area, so a user can get the inside scoop firsthand. To get started, you simply answer a few questions about your timeline and priorities, and HomeLight provides you with two to three agent recommendations in just two minutes. To request a cash offer from Simple Sale, enter the address of your home and answer a few quick questions about it. HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator aggregates publicly available data, such as tax records and assessments, your home’s last sale price, and recent sales records for other properties in the same neighborhood.
Find Homes By Cities
At HomeLight, our vision is a world where every real estate transaction is simple, certain, and satisfying. Buying a home is an exciting but overwhelming process, especially for first-timers. So HomeLight created an entire hub of resources to help you navigate each step with confidence.
Through all her endeavors, she seeks to build pathways for conversation and connection. But if there ever comes a point where you get tired of the virtual world, you can always put away your screens and ask a top real estate agent for their professional opinion — you know, IRL. While AreaVibes, a site mentioned previously in this article, offers some education data, GreatSchools is an entire website dedicated to providing school ratings and resources.
With GreatSchools, a user can look up schools within a city and see each school’s summary rating. Plus, you can also find a top real estate agent in your area with the U.S. In addition, some cash-for-homes companies will only buy properties in a certain price range or within limited markets. For example, iBuyers typically only buy homes in fairly good condition and tend to operate in markets that contain somewhat homogenous housing stock. According to the latest data from Ice Mortgage Technologies, conventional loans take an average of 44 days to close, which isn’t always feasible for a seller in a hurry. The demand for a faster process made selling your house for cash more popular in recent years.
AreaVibes uses what the site calls a “Livability Score” for cities and neighborhoods to help users find the best place to live. The rating takes into account amenities, cost of living, crime, employment, housing, schools, and user ratings, and a rating of 100 is the highest an area can receive. Our internal transaction data shows that the top 5% of real estate agents sell homes for 10% more on average. HomeLight’s agent-matching platform is 100% free to use, and it’s not pay-to-play, so agents can’t pay to be listed or appear as one of your matches.
Property Type
You can schedule a tour in-app and get driving directions to the property when you’re ready to see it for yourself. Usually, an agent takes care of this step by adding the listing to the appropriate multiple listing service (MLS), or the database where brokers share data and information about properties for sale. Listings in the MLS are then syndicated automatically to major listing websites. Trulia offers a great mobile experience for shopping for homes on the go. Earning 4.8 stars on the App Store and 4.7 stars on Google Play, the app touts several map overlays, including demographics, schools, local shops and restaurants, traffic volume, and natural disaster risk.
Moreover, the “Plan Your Commute” feature lets you search listings that suit your ideal travel time to and from key places and amenities. If you want to make sure your commute to work is 15 minutes or less via bicycle, this tool eliminates the guesswork. With these platforms, you can find apartment listings with balconies, home search results tailored to your exact specifications, and recommendations for top-rated Realtors — all just a few clicks away. Dave, a veteran who served in the Marine Corps for 21 years, and Sharon, who worked in real estate, were the perfect duo to launch a military-focused real estate website.
Arguably the biggest challenge in real estate investing is finding the right property. FlipScout by NewSilver is a free tool that uses data and intelligence to identify the most profitable investments wherever you’re looking to buy. It’s quite amazing to realize how much information about real estate is available online. Using the sites we just reviewed, you can find your next rental pad, investigate school rankings, and experience the beauty of a neighborhood you’ve never visited thanks to technology. Our tool uses information from multiple sources to give you a range of value based on current market trends.