The owner of the duplex next door to me had walked away from his obligation and went into hiding. The tennant came to visit me because she thought I might know where the landlord had gone, so she could pay here $425 a month rent. I didn;t know where he was.

I instructed her to remain in the unit. Keep the electric bill payed and the heat on. Banks at the time had so many foreclosures it was just better for them to have someone in the building than to have pipes freeze and vandalism.

I instructed her to give no money to anyone who comes to claim money except her landlord. I instructed her to put each month of rent in her account and save it till her landlord comes back to claim the rent money or until she is evicted from the residence. She only owed the contract with the landlord and noone else.

A year and a half later this young lady came to my home to announce that she had been evicted from the duplex. She had taken the money she had saved for the year and a half and used it as a down payment to purchase herself a nice 3 bed 2 bath trilevel home at a distress sale price of $27.500.

She told me that I had given her the best advise and that she was so happy to be the owner of a beautiful new home. I got a great big kiss for that advise ! The duplex sold awhile later for $23,000. I didn’t lose my home because I built out of pocket. I’ve never had a bank loan on my primary residence.

Compared to many areas of the county, Northwest Florida real estate is in good condition.

http://www.gibbons-realty.com
Pensacola, Florida

Example: He warned me off a converted building that I liked and where the units were very cheap for the area and for the time (2004). There was an excessive number of vacant units in the bldg. and I viewed one and liked it as a fixer upper because of the great location and beautiful vintage details, in addition to a very affordable price. My agent researched the place and found dozens of vacancies in the building, and a disreputable “problem” developer. He warned me of potential legal problems with the building, and warned me to stay away from this particular building.

Turned out that the place was a totally illegal building. The developer was offering “one stop shopping” to first-time buyers, and offered legal services, title search,and financing, but would not make the places available to someone using his own agent or financing. He owned most units in the building, and was not paying utility bills because he was not paying assessments on his units. As a result, the building went through a Chicago winter with no heat or water.

This agent has protected me from other bad situations, though not as bad as this. A good agent can protect you from scams, bad construction, and legal problems, and that really matters in times like these, for this past rampage of speculative lunacy generated many badly built homes and condos, whose owners will be in the courts for years trying to recover the costs for water infiltration, mold, flooding, and other severe construction defects.

redfin.com shows you homes on a map, allows you to filter what you want (how big a house/condo etc…). It also shows you the last sale price right there on the front page for any selected home. It can also show you the “past sales” (on the map you are viewing) for the last 3, 6, 12 months. It has color codes for past sales, regular sales, foreclosures, REOs.

movoto.com does a similar thing, with slightly less options, but perhaps a faster and easier way to filter out homes… it also shows when open houses take place.

Anyhow, zillow is not the only tool out there. I think redfin/movoto are tools that kind of render agents useless when shopping for a home. All you need an agent for is for closing… You are better off browsing for homes online, then eventually use an agent to close, if you feel safer that way…