How to research areas without MLS?

[Mack Bailey]

How would you recommend I go about researching a target area without MLS access? Should I use Zillow or similar apps to get a broad sense of local markets. Of course these arent viable sources of data for making offers.

[Marcus Auerbach]

@Mack Bailey I know everyone likes to bash Zillow, but their "sold" data is actually pretty good. What is lacking is the "for sale" data, which is often outdated. If you just want to research neighborhoods and get a feel for whats going on where Zillow is fine to get started.

Once you know a little more what you are looking for find a competent agent and ask for an MLS portal to be set up for you. A portal has a client login in you can search the areas in MLS that have been set up for you. What most agents don't know, is that you can also give access to "solds" to clients (at least our Milwaukee MLS allows for that).

This only makes sense when you have identified a target area, but is usually a pretty good tool, because it gives you a sense for what the best deals in a particular neighborhood went for, what the mid range and top range is, as well as the condition. This is very helpful for flippers, but also buy and hold. The more you know about a neighborhood, the more confident will you be in your decision making.

As an agent I love to teach clients how to fish - as opposed to handing a fish and say look, here is a great deal for you. Actually, I have become very reluctant to call people with good deals, because more often than not they don't appreciate what they are looking or don't understand how hot this deal is and a day later it's sold. This quickly becomes a waste of my time and quite frankly it makes me feel like I have wasted a good deal. I have a few people I will call, not because they buy every deal, but because they are educated enough that they understand what they are looking at.

Clients who have done enough research on their target area understand how good a particular deal is in the context of what has been sold there in the past. At that point I become the second set of eyes instead of the sales person who tells them this is a good deal (the last thing I want to be), maybe run a formal CMA, so we have the data to confirm what we both think. It takes more time up front for me to help get someone to that point, but then it's a lot easier and frankly more fun to work together.