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work for an engineer, try local.live.com pretty current on live aerial views. Also definately zillow.com !!! mortgage companies have been using this to get approx values to homes!! if you put an address in, up pops the house, and if u scroll down, the 09 taxes.
It is sad but it seems like you have to do your own homework to get the answers you are looking for. This is a big investment so it's best not to cut corners. I'd rather look it up than be surprised a year later. Thank you for sharing this info with the rest of us and good luck, please keep us updated and let us know when you find a home. Even though I am looking in CT the info is still very useful. Things that you mentioned I will be looking for.
Very good stuff LCMT. As a resent home buyer myself in W/O I went through all these steps as you are.
I would add a www.bankrate.com for mortgage rates and lenders. Just look up by an area code for the list of lenders. I would highly recommend HSBC. Just closed 2 weeks ago, lowest rate, 60 days no fee lock, low closing costs, no bank's junk fees in the settlement statement, all fees were as disclosed in the fair landing estimate. Bank fee was $575 (commitment, flood cert, tax services) + appraisal of $325, that's all!
Also, as a buyer, it is worth looking at the city of interest website, a lot of useful info there (budgets, projects, fees, and such). And definitely give a call to the building department to see if there are any open permits and what permits, if any, were taken in the past.
In my example, sellers put up a fence and did other things that would've require a permit, so I had to check if they did everything legally. Saves a lot of headaches afterwards.
Last edited by O-er in WO; 08-05-2009 at 08:27 PM..
Similar to the above, except this site allows you to search based on address, see maps of the neighborhood and residences of all registered offenders, along with their photos. A good site to check to evaluate a neighborhood.
Your web browser and the Maps site are incompatible
The birds eye is useful in checking how busy the road is, what the neighborhood looks like, how close the highways were and what is in the surrounding area. When researching a home once we found out the neighbor next door was a junk collector/garbage guy by looking on the birds eye map and seeing what looked like a plane crash in his back yard.
Obviously not good if you don't want to worry about toxic waste, mosquitoes and rats living next door.
Keep in mind that this may not be up to date. The birds eye view for my house shows only the footers, and it was built in 2006
The junk collector's junk might have not been there anymore if you only base your search on this. Useful if you can confirm in person, but not too reliable for long distance shopping.
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