Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#1

Post by greetings » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

Why can't you search for apts and houses they way you want to?

For example I might want to know

1) which direction the house faces.

2) If it's an apt or townhouse, is it a corner unit.

3) if it have a dishwasher.

4) if it has an open floor plan.

5) if it has an attached garage.

And of course location.

Home searching is something LOTS of people do and right now there seems to be no real good way to do it.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#2

Post by incision » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 2:23 AM UTC

If I had to guess...

The information you're interested probably can't be easily/cost-effectively collected, validated or maintained.

Just ask yourself, where accurate, up-to-date, consistent information on 100M+ apartments and houses going to come from?

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#3

Post by rdouble » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 2:24 AM UTC

There are at least a half dozen ways to get this information when it comes to property for sale.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#4

Post by redspark » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 2:27 AM UTC

Have to totally agree. Looking right now for a house around North Denver. The search part of the equation is horrible.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#5

Post by dangrossman » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 2:51 AM UTC

#1, #2 and #5 just mean starting with Zillow, Trulia, or any other site that lets you search using a satellite map. You enter your price range, # of bedrooms and other requirements, then zoom in and start scrolling the map through neighborhoods you'd consider. The price tags appear above the houses that are for sale/rent, and you can easily see what direction they face, whether they're on the corner and whether they have a garage.

You can pan through the map of an entire county in under an hour.

http://i.imgur.com/IGqE2Zg.jpg -> http://i.imgur.com/o1CJbiv.jpg

This is the easiest and most enjoyable part of the home search IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#6

Post by fixedd » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 3:14 AM UTC

We've been looking at moving FAR away and the sorts of things I want to know is information about the part of town the property is in... crime rates, demographics, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#7

Post by abstrakraft » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 3:37 AM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #3

There are at least a half dozen ways to get this information when it comes to property for sale.

There are many services that offer a great house hunting experience, but in practice, searching for housing means wading through many false positives, stale listings, contradictory information within a listing, horrible or missing pictures, and scams (mostly limited to CraigsList). Demographic information (crime, schools, etc.) from Zillow and Trulia is difficult to navigate and not well organized. The space is definitely better than it was a few short years ago, but there's a lot of room left for improvement.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#8

Post by pragmatictester » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 5:17 AM UTC

fixedd wrote: post #6

We've been looking at moving FAR away and the sorts of things I want to know is information about the part of town the property is in... crime rates, demographics, etc.

http://www.city-data.com/ is pretty good for this sort of information. The forums are very active so feel free to ask subjective questions that are particular for your situation.

For example, http://www.city-data.com/city/West-Linn-Oregon.html http://www.city-data.com/forum/portland/37192-lake-oswego-vs...

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#9

Post by meerita » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 3:27 PM UTC

Assuming all the data can be gathered in some way with Google Maps, they have NSWE coords. You get an Address and there will be mostly the face direction of any house.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts?

#10

Post by mjn » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 1:30 AM UTC

Depends on the jurisdiction. Since ownership of property, and construction of buildings on it, is generally registered with a government, there is a lot of data in existence, and most of it is public record. Alas, much of it is on paper, and possibly scattered among offices (the property deed in one place, construction-code approvals in another place, etc.).

Some governments have digitized their property registers, though. The most comprehensive one I've found is in Denmark, which has made the property register for the whole country searchable/browsable: http://www.ois.dk

Example: select "Københavns Kommune" from the dropdown box at top-right, type "Vesterbrogade" in the box labeled "Vejnavn", then click "Søg". You'll get a list of all buildings with street addresses on Vesterbrogade, one of the thoroughfares in Copenhagen. If you click on an individual address, you'll get information about the building and a listing of any subunits, e.g. that there are 5 floors, with 2 units on the 1st floor, 1 on the 2nd, etc. Click on any individual unit and you'll get information on everything from number of rooms, to when it was most recently renovated, to what materials are used in the construction.

In the U.S., some cities and counties are starting to provide at least some of this kind of information. For example, for Seattle, you can try the King County Parcel Viewer: http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/GIS/PropResearch/Parcel...