Creative way to Learn a New City

I've heard all my life, "that's now how we do things." Have you ever felt your whole soul just grown at the short sightedness of traditionalist that are unwilling to get out of their comfort zone, but worse try to trap you there? (If you're annoyed that I just used a made up word in the last sentence, I might be talking about you! Just kidding, there’s a reason and purpose for all types.)

If you feel the same way, let's learn together. My little discoveries always come from having no clue how to do something and deciding to just TRY to figure it out. My latest discovery was how to use zillow dots to narrow down a Sunday drive to a new town.

You may want to get into real estate investing, but you don't think the market in the town you live in is your best option, either its so hot everyone is after the same properties or you can't afford to flip where you live. And I agree that "driving for dollars" is a great method. However, I'm not what others refer to as "patient". Grin. So, fine, I'll drive all day long if required, but I would like to at least have a starting point!

Michael and I live in Cary (suburb of Raleigh, NC) and we wanted to explore a neighboring town going through a major re-gentrification, Durham, NC. (Think Duke Basketball.) We've been there a couple of times for concerts, but nothing else. So, it mine as well be Kalamazoo as far as my knowledge of neighborhoods and where to go. Sound familiar?

I went on Zillow. (I personally like Redfin better for more accurate info, but I start in Zillow for the dots!) What dots crazy lady? OK, I went to Zillow.com and in the search area, I typed "Durham, NC" Then looked at the map. The map will have all red dots at first. Those are the houses on the market. In the top menu, select "Listing Type" and you'll see they also will show you possible foreclosures, rentals, and recently sold. For this task, you want to select only "Recently Sold" and un-select all the others. Now you will have a bunch of yellow dots on your map. Then go over to "more" at the top and in that drop down select "Days on market" and select 12 months. Now you are looking at everything that has sold in Durham the last year. You may want to choose 24 months, if you want to see how things have progressed over the last two years, and if you aren’t seeing enough dots.

Next, go to the "any price" drop down in that same top menu where you found "listing types" and "more", and change the price range from 0 - 100,000. Then see where there are clusters of dots. Then, just pick a cluster! Yup, random. Just do it and zoom in on that cluster. Now, while looking at that cluster, change the price range to 250,000 - 450,000. Do dots appear near where the dots for 0 - 100k just were? Well, looky there.... looks like people have been buying houses in that area for under 100 and they are ALSO selling homes in that SAME area for over 250k! If there are no dots, in the higher range, then write this area down as an area to drive through another time, because it might be where the next flips are headed. You might find opportunities there if you're brave enough to do the first or have the capital to do a whole street at once?!

If you're like me and you're not THAT brave yet... zoom out and look for another cluster of dots at the 0-100k range. And repeat the above process. Now, for an extreme example, these numbers wouldn't work for Manhattan! But, at this point in your investing (looking for a house) you should know what you can afford and what your return needs to be, so start there.

Maybe in your area a house for 300k is a mansion, maybe it’s a dump, either way, just find your starting point. If 300k houses are the nicest houses in your area, maybe your original parameters need to be 0-50k? My cousin in Indiana has a 60k house that would cost 275k in Cary, just play with the dots and you’ll quickly see how easy it is. Just look for overlapping dots in two completely different price ranges and BAM, a place to start riding around!

Now, before going on your drive, I do suggest one more step. Find the homes that have sold for the top price range in that "bad" neighborhood and click on their actual link. Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll still have pics up for you, but that's just a bonus. You want to go down further into the listing and look at the price/tax history zillow shows. You'll be able to see that this house was purchased for 70k 7 months ago and now it's on sale for 200k, an obvious flip! Write down the address and make sure you look at it! Have a list of homes that you can tell immediately they were flips before you drive out so you know what you're looking at and can see the possibilities.

It's like finding hidden treasure. Plus, if you live in California and know you want to invest in Texas or someplace far away... yes, you'll need someone there with boots on the ground, but this gives you a method to check their findings, or send them to these areas to get them started.

Apologies for the length, but I like to be clear in explaining because I hate when people explain stuff to me and assume I know what the heck they're talking about!

Little about me... My partner and I have completed two flips and are trying to sell a third. We might lose money on this last one because we didn't do our research and trusted one guy. We've spent the last 6 months crash coursing on everything RE we could get our hands on! Learning has been a blast and now I want to pass it on to others like me, so maybe you won't make the same mistakes. The lessons we learned on this mistake have been a huge blessing... and that'll have to be my next blog.

Love sharing. Ask questions. Let's learn together.

Candace