SITES TO UNDERSTAND REAL ESTATE IN THE USA

 SITES TO UNDERSTAND REAL ESTATE IN THE USA

In this video, Julien Raynard introduces us to the real estate websites he regularly uses to make his real estate investments. A transcript of the video is available further down this page.

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Mashvisor

The first site I recommend is Mashvisor. It's one of the most well-known sites for real estate investors in the United States. It's a blog that contains a wealth of information where you can understand the markets, current events, how to calculate profitability, asset types, and more.

There are various analyses with contributions that are truly excellent and of very high quality. Mashvisor also gives you access to tools for calculating profitability and creating a whole host of tables such as deal analyses. It also includes tools dedicated to managing your property. On the site, you have a free section and a paid section that includes many additional services.

The free part is really well done. You have access to a lot of information.

The tools section is paid, and you must subscribe to access the analysis and management calculation tools. Here, you'll find the latest news articles. You'll also find a location study.

In real estate, the two most important things are: time and place. There's a wealth of information on a wide variety of real estate techniques for holding or selling. Depending on your goals, this site will help you.

Bigger Pockets

The second site I highly recommend is Bigger Pockets. It's a great blog where you have access to a wealth of information. It also offers a series of completely free videos that help you improve your skills in real estate in the United States.

It also explains a lot of things you can do in the US. For example, I recently saw a video of someone investing in mobile home parks in the US. It's not necessarily my specialty, and I don't share his vision, but it's always interesting to educate yourself.

On this site, you also benefit from a huge community and can participate in forums based on your goals and interests. You participate in conversations, and it's very enriching. I'll show you several tools that are present on this site. Here, you also have a paid section, but the free section is enough to start your prospecting. On this site, there are articles, podcasts, marketplaces... Of course, it remains virtual, and you have to check to avoid getting fooled. You have to be careful. However, I recommend this site, which is very well-known here and used by most real estate investors.

Contact Julien Raynard to discuss your project

Rentometer

The third site I've selected for you is a tool we use a lot for our property sales activities in Cleveland, particularly for calculating rents. This site is called Rentometer.

This is a site where you can enter the address you want, the number of bedrooms, and the number of bathrooms into the search bar. You can then make a number of assumptions about the different rents you can expect. This is very useful for cross-referencing information if there are people making offers to you. This way, you have an idea of the rent and whether it corresponds well to the current market. It's a very well-designed tool because it's based on comparable properties around the property. If you type the address on the site, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, you have a visual of comparable properties around the house you want to analyze. The average here is $891 per month. The median rent is $891. The 25% corresponds to the 25% that are rented for less (here around $700 per month). The other 25 percent corresponds to the most expensive rents (here around $1,000). Our property is rented at $900 per month, which is very close to the current market. Of course, everything depends on the level of renovation, the quality of the property, the size of the bedrooms, the size of the rooms, the size of the garden, etc. However, this is already a good approach and you can see where you stand. You can also check if the offers you are being made are not unreasonable. I highly recommend Rentometer.

Zillow

The fourth and final site I've selected for you could be a collection of sites. Indeed, there are several major marketing sites that promote properties that are on the market. In the United States, property listings are common to all agents. You have what's called the market, and you have various marketing sites that search for market data to put on their sites. Among the best known, you have the one I've selected today: Zillow.

This site offers you the opportunity to see everything that is for sale, purchased, or rented. This tool lists the different products that are currently on the market. Be aware that there are several lawsuits against Zillow by the American real estate industry. There are still ongoing lawsuits because they have estimation tools that completely distort the data. This can therefore bias the minds of buyers or sellers when they want to list a property for sale or when they make an offer. So take it with a grain of salt! The site is very well designed; you have a map with all the properties for sale, and this allows you to view the properties that may interest you. You can also filter the different offers according to certain criteria. This is interesting to see how the market is composed. However, it is not always appropriate. For example, I can tell you about the Cleveland market where the properties are not on the market. Indeed, we invest in our neighborhoods, and the properties are transferred "off market." This is also true for markets with little inventory, like the Port Charlotte market in Florida. There's little to buy and little to sell. Properties are also listed off-market, which is why you sometimes have to be careful. In large metropolitan areas, it's done quite well. Zillow is a tool that doesn't take renovation aspects into account. Indeed, the algorithm gives you the listed price, but for the estimate, it rarely corresponds to reality.