What Can I Afford?

I have some time this morning to resume my search. Let’s try out Trulia. Trulia is not as well-publicized as Zillow, but I remember from previous visits that their UI is slick and powerful.

First thing I noticed at the bottom left of their homepage is a Trends Report for Jan 07. I’m still wondering when is a good time to buy, so maybe this will help.

Geez, the median price in San Francisco is $775,500! Hmm. Prices in San Francisco haven’t moved much compared to nearby cities. It’d be nice if they also provided metro area stats as well, so I know what’s low or high end in my area. I also notice that the top three “Hoods” (neighborhoods) in San Francisco is Noe Valley, Pacific Heights and Potrero Hill. I used to live in Potrero and really liked it, so I may dig around there.

I am going back to the main website. I type in “San Mateo, CA” (one of the cities on my excel spreadsheet) and click Search. Woah, there are a lot of options. Almost too many. It looks like my ETrade or Google personalized homepage. It takes me a few minutes playing with my mouse to see what I can do. Things that caught my attention:

The map is really smooth. I’ll just use the map as my primary navigation device.
There’s a “National Heat Map”
You can search by neighborhoods, e.g. the drop down for San Mateo includes Beresford, Downtown, East San Mateo…

Ok, I’m employing the same technique as I did with Zillow, i.e. enter my criteria and look at the clusters of markers to see what I can afford. Here we go…

The map is really smooth. I’m a map mashup geek, and this is the smoothest map I’ve played with besides Google’s. I can just hover my mouse pointer over a marker or click on it to get previews of property listings. Ok, so I’ve burned 15 minutes panning around the entire Bay Area. I’ve re-prioritized my list of cities, got rid of two and added a new one. I also jotted down some neighborhood names.

I just wish their was a “big map mode”. And that my listing results on the left synched up with my map view.
Hmmm… I got lost somehow on the site after clicking too much. All of the sudden I’m in San Carlos and my search criteria are lost?? I noticed two cool things. One, they have a stock-price looking chart for property types. Second, I saw a tiny, tiny message about showing this in Google Earth. I hit the back button a bazillion times to get back to the map I want.

What I Got in 30 Minutes

Trulia is for the serious homebuyer and power user. I came across so many tools that I can’t remember them all, but it’s powerful.
I further pruned down my list of areas and got even more specific because Trulia work in neighborhoods.
I’ll use Trulia as a reference in the future to verify what realtors claim.
Their “real estate guide” pages helped me understand a city better.

Tips for Trulia Users

Use the Map to dig around. It’s the best one I’ve used.
There is a lot of horsepower here, so focus on your task and just note the other options until you need them.

Time to enjoy my Saturday. I’ve done my research home work this week already!