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One of the sources I used to find a home.
a comparison shopper, married, into trying new things
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| Cons |
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JAN
28
2008
Our search
The site did a decent job of listing my preferences and price constraints, but where it lacked was with maps to the houses. Some where listed and others were not it was perhaps 60/40 and was making my job a bit harder. Most listings lacked sq. footage along with whether they were on city water or well, septic or public sewer. This proved to be the biggest drawback we encountered.
I was a plumber for 11 years and I knew the workings of each but was not familiar with the suitability of the Kansas soil and how well each worked. There are two types of septic systems you have your normal tank in the ground and then a new one to me a drainage pond. Which is a septic pond that is exposed to the elements. The only drawback to them (if you call it a drawback) is that the property must be at least 5 acres.
They seem to be geared more toward the city settings and leave the outskirts of the city to fend for themselves. With no information on their website I was left to explore all this myself. Calling the brokers was no help as they never bothered to check. I would think that would be any prospective buyers concern and the site should require such information.
Another problem with using this site was that around here only the big real estate brokers used it. So we weren't getting a full listing of homes and they being big never disclosed whether the house was in foreclosure or not. With a manufactured home ( I should say some) if it is in foreclosure you have a hard time getting title to them and most times it is a waste of your time. All of the listing that came up for us had pictures, but less than half included any room dimensions.
My only escape from the lack luster listings on realtor.com was that I got myself pre-approved for my mortgage and my mortgage lady gave me the number of a agent she worked with. Which was a blessing and then some as she had access to ALL the listings in the area. What should have been a much easier task of using a web based site turned into the biggest headache I have had to deal with in many years.
Bottom Line
Between the site not requiring sufficient information on properties and the brokers not being willing to include such info, it made finding a home a very hard task. Sure there were nice pictures of the properties, some interior measurements and that is nice. Those are not the only requirements for finding a home though. A potential home owner also needs to know what the utility situation is in order to make a good buying decision.
Is it just a flaw where rural properties are concerned? I can't say with any certainty but I can say that in my area it is a situation that in 2005 made it very hard for us to make any kind of decision based on Realtor.com. There also seems to be an assumption on their part that everyone knows what schools are where when they search for a house. There was no school information available on the rural locations. Sure you could call the Realtor but if the listing agent was unavailable nobody could even find that information. Most times the agent didn't even know.
My experience with Realtor.com was less than adequate and seemed more like a listing in the paper when it came to information. It was like they paid per word for their listings and left major information out of their postings. There was more information on the individual broker websites than on Realtor.com It was like everyone was afraid to put the good information on Realtor.com for fear another agent would use it to sell the home or something. For anyone looking for a rural location in which to buy I cannot recommend Realtor.com for that search.
Realtor.com is not recommended by kid-kansas
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