Need Help From Those Who Moved to Huntsville/Madison (Valley: days on market, sales)

[SnowPeace]

I just found the site and were impressed by this site to be very informative. My husband just started a new job here. And we're looking for house. After some initial research, we lean towards finding house in Madison. I'd like to ask for realtor reference if you have moved here and have a realtor you worked with that you highly recommend ( I saw Charles, dramamama, etc. have done that). I'm talking to a couple of them and haven't clicked. Please DM me especially if you moved to Madison area. Thanks!

[heart Rare~]

Hi
I wish good luck for you
I am sorry
I was unable to help
I am not in your country

[Charles]

Originally Posted by SnowPeace

I just found the site and were impressed by this site to be very informative. My husband just started a new job here. And we're looking for house. After some initial research, we lean towards finding house in Madison. I'd like to ask for realtor reference if you have moved here and have a realtor you worked with that you highly recommend ( I saw Charles, dramamama, etc. have done that). I'm talking to a couple of them and haven't clicked. Please DM me especially if you moved to Madison area. Thanks!

Something to realize, if you haven't done so already. The realtors associated with North Alabama MLS (the ultimate data source for housing in Madison County) voted not to include addresses, recent sales data and (I think) square footage in online listings. This means you do not have easy online access to a lot of very important information to perform careful real estate analysis (like comparables information). You have to rely on a realtor to be your conduit for this important information. A lot of people don't like this. Realtors here "own" you.

So, you might ask any realtor you interview if they voted to include or not include these valuable pieces of information and perhaps consider this when hiring a realtor.

That's the bad news.

The good news is the www.valleymls.com has a tool that allows filtering on elementary, middle, and high schools. Very powerful. Also, sometimes the photos of the homes on Valleymls have addresses in them - obviously a slip up on someone's part - but take advantage of it.

More information here:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/hunts...us-why-we.html

http://www.city-data.com/forum/hunts...-mls-vote.html

[guxu]

At least valleymls lists the subdivision. So unless it's a mega subdivision, you can have a good idea where the house located. And if you are really interested in a particular house, you can drive around that subdivision and follow the forsale sign, so you can find the exact address.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by guxu

At least valleymls lists the subdivision. So unless it's a mega subdivision, you can have a good idea where the house located. And if you are really interested in a particular house, you can drive around that subdivision and follow the forsale sign, so you can find the exact address.

A lot of folks are shopping for houses from afar like DC or California or North Korea.

[friday13]

I've posted this before. If you don't want to work with a realtor in your "armchair" search (i.e time is not against you and you're only casually looking in a wider timeframe - in my case 2 yrs), there are tools you can use, despite the shortcomings of the public MLS. Here they are:

1. by far, the best and most "complete" for a quick glance (you don't get a CMA with that), but you get the address, sqft, age, description by room, HOA fee - basically it's the one-page report/MLS flyer you get from the "take-one" box outside a for-sale house. To do that, you create an account with valleymls.com, and setup your search criteria, the matches are being delivered to your inbox every time there's a hit. You need to provide the name of your "preferred" realtor (it's a must-fill box), just pick up any realtor's name from the database (you don't need a contractual relationship with the realtor). What I like about this is that you archive your emails and do a search by address (even in Yahoo), it pulls all the email notifications for that house and over a period of time, if there were any, you can see the price changes (usually down), and even the Sell price, CC (closing costs), DOM (days on market) in the pink banner at the bottom of the page, if a property you had your eyes on, sold. The notification status comes in "New" (new listing), "Back on market" (a gimmick after a house has sat on the market for long, it's pulled out, and re-listed with or without a price drop, the DOM then resets; to a person looking in public mls that house would look newly listed, but if you got the emails, you'd see the "back on market" designation-and thus give you a negociating power, correlated with the DOM), and "Price change".

2. number two on my list is City-Data's Elizabeth G.'s website
Moderator cut: realtor websites not allowed/send via DM
You can perform a search anyway you want.

3. additionally, once you have the address from step 1, you can use Madison County's property records to look at what to expect in terms of property tax, the age of any later add-ons - such a pool, shed, the owner - person, bank, employer of a relocatee whose house hasn't sold after a while (i.e. type %toyota%), lot shape.
Madison County, Alabama Map

In the event you could not get the address, if the lot shape is unusual (e.g. 25+78x160x216x71), you can look up the subdivision in Madison City School's street listing by school zone (it's a PDF file on their website, put in Excel and use filters), go to tax records link above and search by street name, use ID parcel and hover over 2-3 houses at a time to move around in that map (it doesn't have zoom-in like a google maps)

4. enter MLS# into Google search and see what you get.

5. websites For-Sale-By-Owner

happy and productive searching!

[SnowPeace]

Great information. I'll digest. Also thanks to all who sent DM to me.

Do you know if Woodland, Ken McDaniel & Jeff Benton are all good builders?

I saw a new subdivision by Woodland that states patio/garden home. Does that mean the yard is smaller? I saw some of the house has two story and does not look too small.

[gsp4ever]

Originally Posted by SnowPeace

Great information. I'll digest. Also thanks to all who sent DM to me.

Do you know if Woodland, Ken McDaniel & Jeff Benton are all good builders?

I saw a new subdivision by Woodland that states patio/garden home. Does that mean the yard is smaller? I saw some of the house has two story and does not look too small.

I know several people who live in homes built by all three above and seem to have relatively few complaints (most everyone has problems of some sort with their builder)

Patio homes are typically built on smaller lots. They don't have to be small homes, however. This is relative, of course but I've seen some patio homes that have in the neighborhood of 2400-2500 square feet. They can be expensive (per square foot) as well and have one or two stories.

[hsv-crew]

Well, the valleyMLS does list room sizes, which I think are more important than an overall square footage (which are sometimes very inaccurate anyway).

As for builder quality, if they are building 100's of homes, then they can't be exceptional, they will be average at best with 'contractor' grade materials (fixtures, appliances, etc.), which is ok if that is what you are looking for.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by SnowPeace

I saw a new subdivision by Woodland that states patio/garden home. Does that mean the yard is smaller? I saw some of the house has two story and does not look too small.

I saw the ones in Whitsworth Farm by Countyline road. The yard is smaller. The builder will do "all" the front yard work for you, mow, fertilize, etc., for a modest "monthly fee" of $100/mo.

It's not for everybody. The price is not that much lower than the full size homes in the back. The patio home is for someone who doesn't want to do yard work and for someone who does not need a big yard.