Its a gamble to go the permit route or not in Philly and absolutely matters the neighborhood/your neighbors as they are usually the folks that will call L&I on you OR if your property is near other construction sites where inspectors would be traveling to/from.

In areas with a lot of market activity, there will be more comps to choose from but please remember that CMAs also include active listing, under contract and expired data (not just sold data).Connecting with an agent who specializes in your area(s) of interest could be helpful here.We use 3 platforms, including our local MLS, to run CMAs.

Focusing just on appreciation causes people to take on negative cashflow situations, gambling that the market will eventually save them before they run out of cash.

You've always got to start there and then reverse engineer into the business platform you leverage.

It seems like a great platform (they call the sellers and vet the leads for you, then transfer the call so that you can try to work on acquiring the property).

Don't gamble. 

Even people that find me direct often then book through one of the platforms, which is fine to me.  

I use Podio so I have the power to integrate with many other platforms for things like sending direct mail or text message from the CRM.

Thats not a wise gamble in most cases if there is a market change for any unknown range of factors.

So far we've enjoyed using the platform.