Best online tools for market research

[Peter Lampione]

I've searched existing questions about online tools for market research, but wanted to ask some specific questions as I haven't gotten them answered yet.

My wife and I are just starting out and doing research on markets in the Tampa Bay / Sarasota area.  It is a bit overwhelming as there are so many neighborhoods and we can't become experts in all of them.  To narrow it down we are starting by picking school districts, then we want to look at which neighborhoods have a decent amount of multi-family properties, and continue narrowing down through other criteria (rents vs prices, crime, jobs, population growth, services available, ...)  In addition to online analysis we will spend time in the neighborhoods during visits there, but for this post we are looking for advice about online tools, specifically:

• Is there a good online source to determine how many properties in a given area are multi-family?
• Is neighborhood scout worth paying for?  Is the info available from a paid membership not easily available elsewhere and worth the cost? 
• Is rent-o-meter worth paying for?
• Is greatschools.org the best option for researching schools?
• Looking at crimereports.com and crimemapping.com for crime data.  Have seen a few others, though they all seem to have similar data.  Any suggestions on which are best (most accurate) and how to best leverage them would be appreciated.
• We are using city-data.com, usa,com/rank, walkscore, bestplaces.net, statelocalgov.net, and Zillow to get some general information. Any other tools/services we should consider, or any of these you consider not worth it?

Thanks for any help you can provide, these forums have been really helpful for us as we are trying to learn the business.

Thanks,

Peter

[Michael Haynes]

@Peter Lampione, Hello, I am impressed with your diligent effort to research for an Investment property. But, to me it still seems like you are trying to Buy a Pig in a Poke. You don't live down here and any amount of research is trying to pinpoint a certain property based on specific criteria. That is what we do in Stock Trading. There are Fundamental and Technical guys who Invest or Trade, depending on your time frame. You are a Fundamental, Growth Stock type, who may find the exact type of property that you are looking for, but, there is a vacant lot next store full of weeds, the guy across the street has pitbulls that constantly bark and the corner house is in need of repairs and going into Foreclosure, etc. Even if the Numbers work, the area may not be appreciating or our Economy may be ready for a ready for another Recession and not the right time to Buy anything, long term. I am a Technical Futures Trader who uses a chart to just Trade the Current Price Movement, or scalper, regardless of the Fundamentals. I want to 3D Google Map the area that was indicated to me by my Search on Zillow.com etc. and drive all the blocks around the Target property to see if I would actually want to live there. One difference between Tampa and Sarasota is that it is much more expensive in Sarasota. They didn't build a lot of multi-family units in City of Tampa. I never wanted to consider Buying anything on the East side of the I275 Highway which runs North out of downtown Tampa. Your best tool is an Agent who really does all the research for you. They have to find properties that fit your parameters that make for good investments because they will produce positive monthly cash flow and be in appreciating neighborhoods. I like to look at the value of the land first. The lots down by the AFBase where I have a half acre, CG Commercial property that used to be four lots are going for around $90K per Residential lot. Builders for basic, two story town homes will build for $120K per sq. foot and you can get that down to $80 per sq. foot. For simple homes and duplexes, why would you pay more than the cost of a vacant lot with a new building? Agents like to price the Sale Value of a property at the Comparative Sale Value in that area per square footage of building, with little concern for any extras or the neighborhood. This way they can say that all these homes in that area have been sold for so much per sq. foot when the lot you could be looking at is extra big or has no trees, is not in a Flood Zone etc. on the positive side. Or is near the Highway noise, on a street where the School buses all run by at 5AM, is one of the streets with all the speed bumps or bad drainage or mosquitoes etc. on the negative side. People want to treat Investing in Houses as if they were a Stock and their not. The main reason is that you cannot snap your fingers and just Sell your property when you want to, like a Stock. And properties don't always go up in value.