I've been studying up on REI and I'm at that phase where I look at houses all the time. Some on the internet and a lot of houses when I'm driving around (I can't turn off the switch so when I see property, I don't think how nice it is, I think how could I make money from it).

I have setup some simple alerts for my Farm Area and received this from Zillow of the weekend:

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/28204448_zpid/29.74789,-95.56503,29.745969,-95.567873_rect/18_zm/

Now, as soon as I saw this page I knew exactly what house this was and where it’s located. I drive right by it 3 times a day. I won’t go into why this is a bad investment, but I will show you something interesting and how knowing my Farm Area helped.

After reviewing the listing I typically go to Google Earth just to look around.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7473258,-95.5671656,3a,75y,184.65h,78.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCQiAKeSTrEn0JExkpMHnbg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Seeing this image shocked me! It looks way better than the listing, so what happened between this image and when it went up for sale?

Now click to go left down the street…

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7473262,-95.5670762,3a,75y,211.93h,81.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stXL4K6FOohu6tCFRT8WcmA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Hummm… We went from okay, to bad, to somehow worse. Now, I as I know this area I will tell you this image is a little more realistic of what the houses look like.

Now let’s look just to the right of the house…

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7473252,-95.5673003,3a,75y,176.64h,74.85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI35SKV89ZB70p0UcwyJoNw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Oh, even better, there are two cops arresting someone at the house and if you look closely there is someone already in the back seat of the cop car. By now you have also noticed the empty lot next door.

FYI, the left and right images on Google Earth are from September of 2015. The center image is from 2011! (which means the empty lot has also been there since at least 2011)! I didn’t even know you could do that but apparently you can chose what image to use for Google Earth.

So, by know you are asking yourself what does it actually look like? The answer is pretty much none of these images is what it looks likes.

The house is vacant, so no cars on the lawn, also no trash everywhere outside.

That landscaping? Nonexistent. There is a sidewalk and some mud.

That driveway gate? Not there.

That empty lot? Oh its still there being an eye sore.

What’s the point? Why does any of this matter?

Well, since I knew the area, I was able to know most of the details without even looking things up. That’s saves me a lot of time. Especially since someone has gone through some trouble to make the property look better than it really is. Knowing your Farm Area can save you a lot of time, time you could be using to analyze deals. This is especially true for people investing at a distance.

Another side note: If you would like to view historical Google Earth images, check out this video to do so. http://www.google.com/earth/learn/beginner.html#tab=historical-imagery