Comments on: A neat interface to a depressing market

A neat interface to a depressing market

blahblahblah — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:09:27 -0800

HotPads has one of the cooler interfaces to the real estate world. Especially worth looking at are the heat maps that show you scary, scary foreclosure rates across the country and the rent ratios that tell you whether it is worth buying in a particular area, among lots of other data.

By: tachikaze

tachikaze — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:18:50 -0800

Buying into DC-area property based on current rent-raitios may prove to be premature.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:19:02 -0800

Wow. I live in one of the darkest, reddest areas on the east coast. Data-junkie's wet dream. Thanks for the link.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:19:40 -0800

Nice interface and interesting information, though I'm not absolutely sure the color coding is absolutely accurate.

By: fiercecupcake

fiercecupcake — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:23:26 -0800

Can anyone figure out if it's possible to screen results for acreage? I'm having a hard time finding that.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:25:14 -0800

Looks like my wife and I bought just in time. Similarly sized homes in our area are going for twice what we paid. HAW HAW

By: sidereal

sidereal — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:32:07 -0800

Say, let's take a look at Baltimore...whoah. Here in Baltimore, there are entire blocks that are just empty. Boarded up, folks gone. No cars on either side of the street. No trash, because the last trash pickup came and went a while ago, and there's no one to litter. Just empty streets. Folks here are buying up side-by-side row houses, knocking out the middle wall, and fixing them up into self-deprecatingly-named "Double Wides", nice little homes. I dream about buying the whole block when they're $2000 each, and making a single home a block long. the fine print: many of these properties are condemned or not renovatable, in addition to the foreclosure business. It's fun to think about though.

By: uncleozzy

uncleozzy — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:49:28 -0800

I walked past a couple of foreclosures the other night during an evening stroll. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I could manage the cash and the time to fix it up. Unfortunately, even those little (think original Levitt home), foreclosed, handyman-special starter homes are still going for a pretty penny around these parts.

By: Mutant

Mutant — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:54:19 -0800

Yeh, this is an interesting concept; the company has been around since 2005, and were shopping for VC money maybe two years ago. Some eighteen months ago they landed $2.3M first round financing from Meakem Becker Venture Capital, the proceeds of which apparently were going to be used to expand their development team, hire a CEO and some marketing staff. I first heard about these guys from some buddies that do VC and got curious about the underlying business as I was fully expecting a real estate correction in the United States, and needed to know where I could get accurate price and foreclosure information in case I wanted to do a deal. HotPads are sourcing their foreclosure data from RealtyTrac, so it should be pretty reliable. I'm not sure about refresh or the time delay, but if you'd like to see the underlying foreclosure data in tabular form, without the pretty mash up on top, the June 13th data is here. Everyone probably knows the number one state in terms of foreclosures is Nevada, and Clark County is number one in that state (you can drill down to individual properties in the second link). I've been paying a lot of attention to the real estate correction back in The States, as I'd love to buy Maw a place somewhere warm but she just won't leave the farm in Western New York (and its damn cold there in the winter!).

By: Perplexity

Perplexity — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:06:51 -0800

Wow, HotPads is pretty slick for searching for rentals. I've really been wanting EXACTLY this as I start another apartment hunt. Very nice indeed.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:11:24 -0800

A lot of that data is old. A unit in my building that sold like 6 months ago is still listed.

By: sondrialiac

sondrialiac — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:45:32 -0800

It's impossible to go to the website (realtytrac) and get more information about the properties, because realtytrac is a complete nightmare of a site.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:48:15 -0800

I'm pretty sure the house that I live in is being foreclosed (we rent). It's a circa 1890 building that with TLC could be something really nice, but unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that we'll be the last people to ever live in it.

By: daq

daq — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:53:42 -0800

HAH!! I live in Clark County, Nevada (*Las Vegas and surrounding area in the valley). On my street alone, there are 4 houses that have been foreclosed on in the last 3 months. In my little neighborhood/developement, there is a foreclosure on every block. It's awesome.

By: spicynuts

spicynuts — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:15:56 -0800

Awesome in the sense of 'terrifying' or awesome in the sense of 'neato, someone's life is fucked!!'?

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:42:45 -0800

Nice to know that the home across the street from me is selling for $750K.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:51:08 -0800

bad data.... my little village has many, many houses in foreclosure, and this only shows one...

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:16:47 -0800

This is really useful, thanks. I will be using the various maps in talking to my girlfriend about buying/renting and our plans to move back to NY/NJ. I'm really visual, so it's awesome to just go scrolling around the geography, with vibrant colors to help assess the data.

By: pjern

pjern — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:17:42 -0800

So what happens when the market completely collapses, and the banks and courts can't handle the flood of foreclosures? I think we're getting close to that point right now.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:07:23 -0800

What's up with using the super ugly clunky maps until you zoom in enough to get Microsoft Virtual Earth? Seems like you would just use MS the whole time. There's also something seriously wrong with the rent ratio heat map- there's no way rents in safe, suburban Alameda are the same as gritty West Oakland. In fact, the more I poke around, the less sense it makes.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:12:59 -0800

Oh wait, I see what's up now. home prices/rent ratio.

By: justkevin

justkevin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:04:04 -0800

I'm a little skeptical that Cambridge, Mass's price/rent ratio is 10.

By: D.C.

D.C. — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:05:19 -0800

Not showing my town in the correct location plus other data-sorting stupidity makes me doubt the accuracy of this website.

By: davejay

davejay — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:05:45 -0800

Wow. There's five houses on my street, including three with the same floorplan as ours. I with this was useful enough to pinpoint the specific houses and show information, because there are a couple of these that (if they're the houses I'm thinking of) I'd happily make a bid. Of course, I'm not behind on my mortgage, so I may have a bit of a sunny view on things.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:21:08 -0800

davejay, Most of them show addresses when you mouse over them (at least where I live).