Investing in Real Estate:I Read It On Trulia So It Must Be True - Avoiding Bad Real Estate Information Online

Article Summary:

Article Content:

Long gone is the time where Realtors controlled access to listing and real estate information. Today home buyers and sellers have mountains of information about real estate at their finger tips.  Real estate agents and commentators are more than willing to give you their opinion and compete for your attention(this agent included). Nowhere is the competition more visible than on Q&A websites such as Trulia, City Data and Zillow.

While all of this information can be great - it’s free and easy to access over your computer while you’re sitting at your desk - the quality of information may not be that great. I regularly post answers on Trulia and City Data and am sometimes appalled by the answers given, particularly on Trulia. Answers can range from being rude to just plain wrong.

Not all information is created equal - especially information obtained by asking questions of people you’ve never met before and whose identity may be unknown.

How can you sort through the static and find sources of valuable information? How can you tell if one answer to your question is better than another? Here are a few tips for the average real estate consumer:

Realtors Troll Sites Looking for Prospects

When you post a question on Trulia and Zillow especially, expect to see Realtors throwing themselves at you.  Since you’re in an anonymous forum, they can’t contact you directly but it is a little much to get 15 agents pushing you into calling them. Sometimes, the agents won’t even answer your question - they just hope to get you on the phone.

Make Sure A Local Realtor is Answering the Question

Especially on Trulia and Zillow, agents from across the country will be answering questions - even if the question is specific to a certain house, town, market or local real estate laws and practices.  An agent from Hartford County is going to have better information about the local real estate market than an agent from California - plain and simple.

Realtors Can’t Answer All Your Questions

Legal issues are best answered by an attorney. Property condition or home inspection issues are best answered by a contractor or home inspector. Realtors can answer specific questions about a house if it’s their listing or about the general home buying and selling process, market statistics, or can tell you how to find out how crime is in a specific neighborhood, for example.  Realtors have to be very careful about answering questions that could be interpreted as steering a buyer from one area to another…even though that’s what consumers expect us to do.

Questions you’re likely not to get answered or answered seriously are those that could violate Fair Housing Laws or “psychologically impacted properties.” Psychologically impacted properties include those where a murder, suicide or other crime took place, a “haunted” house or one where someone with HIV/AIDS lived.

Opinions Are Like ********, Everyone’s Got One

Sorry. I just couldn’t think of a more appropriate title.

If you spend any time on City Data, Trulia or Zillow, you see pretty quickly that some opinions are better than others. There are your Realtor Haters (every Realtor is a cheat and liar), Closet Realtors (they bought a house once and know everything about real estate), Neighborhood Racists (this or that part of town stinks), Grumpy Taxpayers (everything is too expensive), People Who Don’t Read the Question (obvious), and Anarchists (post nonsensical or inflammatory comments).

Once you weed through these answers, you may find a few decent opinions. Maybe.

I’m not saying don’t post your questions online - just use some common sense and don’t expect too much.  Where should you go for quality information then? I bet you can answer that question without any prodding from me.

———————