Me again from Belleville. I can only speak from my limited but productive experience, but I'm not sure why the need to look at a lot of houses and get a lot of contractor quotes, it makes me wonder what the goal is exactly, but I dont know the whole story and am not making a judgment in any way.
What I do know is this:
-- You can filter through many properties online, and look at a small number in order to find one that has, the key word, value (expected sale price - (purchase price + rehab costs)
-- -- Use Zillow, and use Auction.com. Set up alerts with zillow so you get emails which can then be notifications on your phone, for various filters such that if something new comes on the market, youll get buzzed right away.
-- -- Focus on a few zip codes. Use that in your zillow searches. If I watched all of Southern Illinois, I would know way less about a specific properties value against other properties in the area, and have to do way more research on each one - the rule there (for me) is that there are deals with value all over the place if you know how to look, at least in my region. You need to get a feel for what a property is worth based on a lot of data points you have absorbed, including crunching the numbers
How I look at / for a property:
1) Zillow alerts and daily Auction.com checks for three zip codes around me, sale price under 40,000
2) Check the 'Foreclosure Estimate', meaning 'sort of roughly ballpark what its worth' - is it a huge gap? Foreclosure sale, 25,000 asking, Foreclosure Estimate 105k, for me i would then look more closely
3) Check recently sold properties right on the same street (most valuable). Compare number of bedrooms, square footage, number of bathrooms, basement vs crawl space, garage, in that order. Can't find one next door? Zoom out. Try the next street, the neighborhood, anything you can find - the more data, the more accuracy, and the accuracy at best will be only "good".
4) Zillow Price / Tax history - when did it last sell? for how much? was it in the past two or three years, or 2005 when the sale price would be absolutely meaningless in the current market? Don't forget the "real estate crash".
5) Look very closely at the pictures, what do you see - water / mold? foundation? The pictures will tell a story of what else your not seeing. Look for bad, look for good.
6) Use Google Earth to see what it looks like outside / across the street / etc - sometimes very useful, sometimes not helpful
7) Go look at it on your own without a realtor from the outside
This is a just a quick list and is just my approach, back to work.
Good luck,
Rob
