Is now a good time to buy? Don't ask us. Find your inner bean counter, and do the math for yourself:
- Market Trends
The Case-Schiller data illustrates how the market has been declining since last summer. - Pricing Individual Homes
Check out the New York Times' rent ratio formula (price / annual rent of comparable property < 20). - Renting vs. Owning
The New York Times tool for calculating the break-even point on renting vs. owning is more gorgeous than useful but still makes the grade. - What You Can Afford
The MSN calculator for figuring out what you can afford is our fave, but others like the one from SmartMoney. - Real Estate vs. Stocks
The HouseMath site for comparing a real estate investment to the stock market is a bit dated, but it has attitude and the core functionality is still sweet.
For evaluating neighborhoods, we recommend:
- Schools
Check out the website of your state's testing council (California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington, DC and Washington state). - Amenities
Walk Score, to rate how many coffee shops, head shops and restaurants are near a particular house runs a little slow but it's sweet. - Prices
Trulia's pricing heat maps, which it kills us to link to, are pretty good. - Pricing Trends
AltosResearch has good graphs on pricing and days-on-market trends by neighborhood, even if the data is sometimes glitchy. - Public Records, Ad Nauseum
PropertyShark is great for getting all the demographic data on a neighborhood and every public record on a property. You have to register, but the spam isn't bad. - Toddler-Friendliness
Playborhood, a cool San Francisco area blog on jungle gyms and real estate, is well written.
People want to know where to go so they can see every house for sale and of course we have a few suggestions:
- Broker Listings
An MLS-powered site like Redfin + the listing broker's site for each listing, which sometimes has more photos. - For-Sale-by-Owner Listings
Redfin has a lot of FSBO's on its site, but not from craigslist (no-syndication, no-crawling policy), so you should check there and on Zillow ("Make Me Move") too. - Foreclosure Auctions
Short sales and bank-owned listings show up on Redfin, but RealtyTrac has foreclosures up for auction. Sure it's a $30-per-month subscription...but it's data you can't get anywhere else. Serious investors only. A bit spammy, so use your hotmail address when you register.
It's hard to avoid a sales pitch here, but we like our general-purpose real estate tips:
- Picking an agent
Our tips for how to choose an agent – and check our agent profiles where we publish a history of recent deals each of our agents has handled. - Coming up with a price
A 3-step guide to doing a CMA. - Negotiating the deal
Be sure to look for the "tells" for negotiating a good deal. - Check the home inspected
Make sure you've hired a certified home inspector. If you're buying in California, check out the California Real Estate Inspection Association.
A lot of people are looking at distressed properties for bargains on their next home. It's a tough market, dominated by real estate investors.
- Foreclosure Heat Map
The zoom control on hotpads.com is seizure-inducing but the foreclosure map is our favorite. - Short Sales
Here are the seven signs a short sale isn't deal going to happen, with a tip of the hat to our friend Frank in DC. - Auctions
We give credit where credit is due to RealtyTrac again, because their explanation of how a foreclosure auction works is just awesome.
Mortgages are complicated, so take your time when you're shopping for one.
- Types of Mortgages
The best site is run by a retired Wharton professor. Zillow discusses in a wiki page that is rambling but still helpful. - Current Rates
This federal government site has nice summaries of current rates. - Conforming Loan Limits
If your loan is over the limit, Fannie and Freddie won't back the loan and it can't be sold on the secondary markets, then your rate really goes through the roof – up to 4% more in some cases. The limits are outlined on Fannie's site. - FHA Loans
An FHA loan is a great alternative for anyone who can't come up with 20%. The insurance cost is often worth the lower rate. - Credit Score
720 is the new super-gold standard, 680 is still pretty good and below 620 is almost a death sentence. Credit pulls when you're shopping for a mortgage don't hurt your rate, and anyone who tells you that is selling something. You can get a free credit score pretty easily, so long as you remember to cancel your sign-up before they charge you $30 a month. - Shopping for a Mortgage
If you're going to shop online, we like Zillow's loan request much better than Lending Tree's because it's anonymous - Closing Costs
ABC News' article on the closing costs is a great place to start when trying to figure out which fees are real and which a bogus. BankRate has a cool feature that lets you look up the average closing costs by state. - Mortgage Calculators
BankRate has a nice multi-step calculator but you have to see a lot of ads. Zillow's calculator looks better though.