By Gad I love Redfin or The Matching Game

I'm researching a set of Baltimore neighborhoods before I go up and spend a few days walking around getting a feel for them. The way I'm researching is I go on Redfin, download the past years' sales for the areas I'm scoping, 'cause Redfin let's you do that, and looking at every single sale, recording the name of the selling and buying agents in a spreadsheet. Why? I've got two graduate degrees, old habits die hard and I'm not interested in what's on TV right now.

By looking at every single stinking sale page for every property (minus condos and land) I noticed something. Occasionally, a house that sold last year or earlier this year because it was a REO or a short sale or a piece of crap or something, happens to be pending or currently up for sale. And sometimes I can find the page advertising the previous sale, with pictures.

That's when I have two tabs of the same house. One tab of the previous REO/Auction/Crap sale and one of the current "renovated"/new sale. This is when I play "The Matching Game". It helps if the previous sale has photos of the interior. If I am really lucky, there will be shots of the same room, from the same angle, where I can ask... so what justifies the 50% or 100%+ markup?

Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge flipping and you can't tell the whole story from a few tiny or badly shot photographs.

The "winners" of the matching game did obvious work. They put in new floors, changed the layout, updated the kitchen or bathrooms, added some square footage, and/or fixed some screaming/glaring problems from the previous sale. Then there are the ones who Match too well in the "Matching Game" and I can't tell what the heck was done. For one property it just looked like the sellers steam cleaned the carpet and painted. There is some value in getting it out of the bank's/ auctioneer's hands but for my own needs I'd rather do that myself.

I'm having fun doing this research, which the awesomeness of Redfin allows for. And every so often I get to make a game out of it.