I discovered a great website for house-hunting this past weekend, www.Trulia.com, and I can honestly say it’s now my favorite site for looking up homes for sale.

The feature that sets it apart from all others is that it maps out all of the results so you can see exactly where all of the homes reside. For those that are familiar with the area(s) that they want to live, this is a must have features as it makes narrowing your search results really simple.

Even for those that aren’t familiar with the area they live in, it’ll let you see which houses are closest to the Interstate or to where you work.

But, Trulia has other unique features that make it a great website.

• Recently sold homes are displayed on the map.
• Recently updated listings are listed as such.
• You can subscribe to receive notices for individual properties when they are updated.
• Viewing a property also provides you with any available comps.
• Housing trends for your area are also available (The larger the city & the closer to Atlanta, the more detail they can provide)
• Post questions about real estate and have them answered/discussed by many different individuals in the real estate community.

I had always talked about creating a site like this, but didn’t know the whereabouts to get the data. But, I’m not dissappointed, this website is greater than what I could have created by myself. Make sure to check it out sometime.

For those that have taken an interest in foreclosures, you may have come across a document known as a Property Condition Report at one time or the other. At first glance, it looks just like a Home Inspection report. However, buyers should take note that a Property Condition report is not the same as a Home Inspection report.

A Property Condition report is a report prepared by an Appraiser, not a Home Inspector, for HUD.

HUD requires that for a home to be listed with HUD, it meet their minimum property standards. Appraisers make sure of this by checking through HUD’s home valuation sheet (HUD Form HUD-92564-VC). Thus, what you get in the Property Condition Report is the minimal amount of information that is necessary for the home to be listed.

Further,the Property Condition Report is more focused on what is easily visibile. Conditions such as a cracked foundation, gas leak or leaky roof may not be covered in this report. So, don’t believe that just because it’s not in there, nothings wrong.

A Home Inspection is much much more thorough ( you’ll notice this right away when your Home Inspector hands you a small tree worth of paper ). It also usually has a number of photos to go along with each section in the report.

Also, a Home Inspector may be held liable for the representations made in the Home Inspection report. (Whereas an Appraiser would probably not be liable to a buyer for mis-representations in a Property Condition Report; since a Property Condition Report shouldn’t be relied upon for a house purchasing decision – but, I’m not a lawyer, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Conclusions?

Home Inspections > Property Condition Reports

UPDATE: BTW, for those who haven’t seen a Property Condition Report, they can be pulled up by doing a home search on www.bidselect.com. Just view the details of a property and then click on the link to view the report (where the big red arrow is pointing below):

Click Image to EnlargeWould you buy the house above? Typically, when people are looking for a house to either live in (or flip for that matter), these are the houses that people don’t consider. For good reason too! Housing in this price range usually have a multitude of problems, such as:

• Asbestos
• Lead paint
• Termites
• Deteriorated Structure
• Rough neighborhood
• The list goes on and on…

Any one of the above could easily cost you more than the house is worth. But, if you were able to get past the potential problems, would you be willing to purchase a house below the $50k threshold?

After reading this article, I was curious as to what I might be able to find in my area (namely, Kingston and Rome, GA). So, I first did a search in Kingston and came up with zero houses. But, I hit paydirt when I searched for houses in Rome. The house featured at the top of this article is one of the homes.

Here are a few more of that house, including its interior:

Listed at $41,995, this home is located minutes away from Shorter College, Floyd Hospital, and numerous places to shop and eat(Click here for a map). Most of the homes in this particular area are just older homes in established neighbordhoods.

One of the immediate items that would require attention would be the lack of central heating and air. With temperatures reaching 100+ in Rome, this would be a required update with a cost of approximately $10k. Plus, it’s probably going to require additional electric work, which is going to run the bill up another $10k if you have to rewire and then repair the walls.

Furthermore, some mortgage companies may be willing to roll the renovation costs into the mortgage if your debt to income ratio isn’t too high.

My personal opinion is that if you can avoid the potential pitfalls above, it could be a worthwhile endeavor. Especially if the city is experiencing substantial growth (as Rome appears to be). With an approximate mortgage payment of $300/month, that wouldn’t be so much of a burden that repairs and improvements couldn’t be made within budget.

As always though, I would recommend doing your homework before considering any such high-risk purchase and, of course, spending the money for a thorough home inspection prior to making any purchasing decisions.

Like most people, I’d prefer to have a nice brick house over a typical wood/vinyl sided house; less maintenance, etc. So, I had been keeping an eye on one such house in Cartersville, GA. It was a 4-sided brick house, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2-car carport, and a basement for the sweet price of $109,000.

A few days after viewing it, I drove back by for another look to discover a crew working on it. Online, the house was then listed for $115,000. That seemed pretty reasonable, depending on what exactly was being done to the house.

So, a couple of weeks later they are mostly finished and now I’ve discovered that the price has risen to $139,900. That’s $5000 more than the house right across the street from it and that one has an in-ground pool, work shed, and a much better kitchen to boot!

So, it appears that $20,900 gets you the following:

• Refinished wood floors
• New Paint (Inside & Out – brick isn’t painted)
• New vinyl in the kitchen
• New carpet in living room
• and new interior doors? (not certain on this one)

I’m a bit disgusted by just how much the price has risen. It doesn’t, any shape, resemble a $140k home. The one across the street from me right now is priced at $132k and it’s much larger and in much better shape (although, it’s not brick).

However, if they can get that for the house, more power to them. Hopefully, whoever does buy it is smart enough to not become house-poor over it.

For those interested in viewing the brick house, it’s located right about here on Turner Drive.

UPDATE: Bartow County will be added to this service!

There are a lot of foreclosure listings available online, most of which require a paid subscription to find out where the property is located. However, there is a new service available called “My Early Edition” (www.myearlyedition.com).

MEE provides all the details you need to locate foreclosures in and around the Atlanta Metro area…for free. The service even goes so far as to not only give you the address, lender information, and current owner, but will also do a reverse look-up to give you the phone number(s) associated with the property.

Here’s a screenshot of one of the searches I did:

The site could probably use a little work on the interface (Sorry Dave! ), but it is free and it’s frequently updated. Plus, since it was created by one of my friends from college, I can tell you for certain that you aren’t going to get bombarded with special email offers once you create your account.

Plus, new features are going to be added that will make this a very valuable tool for those searching for a deal. So, sign-up now and take advantage of this site while you can.