Today I’d like to share an emotional story we received from Stephane, a real estate investor just starting up, looking to find his first property. I am withholding onto last name for privacy purposes. So, here we go…
I have been using several websites looking for foreclosures and other possible deals. I had about 50K to start with and I was looking at a fixer-upper, SFH 2 or 3 bedrooms, something in need of some repairs that can command a high price discount, even a foreclosure.
Being from Chicago, I have been looking on the South side of Chicagoland where it seems to be a good place to find such bargains. However, Chicagoland is huge and next to impossible to comprehend and stay accurate with all market prices.
My wost fear starting up as investor: how do I know if I can break even? How do I get the rent info? After asking left and right everybody pointed me to the local newspaper and even craigslist. Some also pointed me to ask local realtors. I got confident and picked up one property in Chicago Heights, IL listed for $55,000. Oh wow, that fits my bill I said and I jumped in my car and took off.
After driving for 45 min I get there, and then the reality hits me: ok, if i buy it, how much can I rent it for? I was scratching my head nervously, I was sitting there in my car and I called my friend who has several properties in neighboring areas.
His answer was: Do you have Internet on your phone? I said, sure, I have a Treo. Then go to www.zilpy.mobi and enjoy yourself.
I sure did because I was able not only to pull an instant free rent estimate of $858 right off my Treo, but also top 5 comps nearby in 2 seconds flat!! That was excellent and since I was already in the area, I drove by to see them. Oh WOW, I felt I started to love what I was doing for the first time!
Thank you Stephane for the great story. We at Zilpy love to hear stories like yours, where first time investors or even those with several years of experience leverage the power behind Zilpy when they need it and how they need it. You just saved a weekend worth of scouring newspapers and internet sites, making lists and putting properties side by side to compare apples to apples. www.Zilpy.mobi was created with convenience in mind, to quickly have access to do a reality check on a specific address or cross street.
Hello to everybody, we would like to welcome you to our newest and most exciting online service: The Zilpy Blog!
The Zilpy team has been swinging the blog idea for a couple of months now and after much brain cycles (and of course Redbull) we decided to bring it out to life.
I must agree, I am not a blogger (hence ask for your patience), but everybody in Zilpy pushed me in front to write a foreword. After hearing hard to dismiss arguments such as: Nobody writes best, you are the CEO so launch it, and the same, I crossed my fingers and started typing.
Ok, what is the idea behind Zilpy Blog?
For the past several months we have been aggregating a huge amount of rental market data, and this process is growing every day. We have over 2 mil rentals that cover the past 12 months alone, thanks to our over 430 partners who provide us with data nationwide. The data covers virtually all USA and serves as source of numerous analytics and trends that you can see on www.zilpy.com.
As they say “with great power comes great responsibility“, looking at the huge amount of data, we took our role very serious to keeping you accurately and up to the minute informed; whether you are a renter, landlord, real estate investor, real estate professional, media reporter and all who have an interest in the housing market.
Everybody is now more or less used to waiting for “quarterly” rental market reports to read the latest trends, but I personally take great pride in Zilpy Geeks who have made it possible to see these trends in real time and crunch tens of thousands of rentals every day to fuel these analytics. Not only we compute them, but this week it we made it possible for any website to display them for free in form of Rent Trend Widgets (http://www.zilpy.com/widgets), a simple copy paste of some HTML code.
So, what is that we want with the blog after all? Our goal is to win your trust that Zilpy is the leading source providing accurate reports and analytics on multiple aspects and trends of the rental market. We also invite you to share your opinions and make your voice heard, we want to bring transparency to the market, to empower you to make the best decisions to rent, invest or wherever your steps take you onto your journeys.
Here is a sneak peek on the upcoming posts:
- How did James and Mike, co-eds, save a weekend looking for an affordable place to rent for the next year
- Rental market is melting, should I rent or buy? See top 10 metro rent vs. buy special report comparing rent and sale numbers
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