Home Elements to View Online Prior to a Showing Request
- Adam Garrett
- Jun 27, 2023
- 12 min read
Updated: Feb 21
In this article, I wanted to briefly go over the most important elements to view online prior to showings for buyers. Keep in mind that buyer preferences may vary substantially, & some items not highlighted might be very important to you, so be sure to keep those in mind as well.
Items to Look for Prior to Requesting a Showing Directly Within the MLS Listing:
Use a Laptop or a Desktop, Not a Phone to View Property/Area Elements
When looking at properties, it's best to use a large screen that you are close to, not a phone. A large screen will help you see more details such as negatives you might not see on a phone. If a virtual tour is available, be sure to see it.
Green, Red, & Purple Notation Used Below
With items in green, you should narrow here if desired within the MLS search (i.e. ruling out manufactured/mobile homes if desired or home styles that don't have a backyard). That way you don't need to pay much attention when it comes down to weeding through homes.
With items in red, you should pay attention to these factors even within an optimized search.
With items in purple, whether you should add search criteria depends on whether or not it's a requirement to be answered within MLS. If it's not a requirement to answer, there are cases where you'll be filtering out properties that fit your criteria where the listing agent either didn't know or was trying to cut corners.
Top of Listing from REIN MLS Portal: Map View (i.e. Flood Zones), Virtual Tour, Status, & Yr Built
Image courtesy REIN
When checking the map view, be sure to look for the flood zone map as well as getting a visual of the area beyond the pictures. It's not unusual for a listing to purposefully exclude certain angles. I've seen where a home was literally leaning on the adjacent home, but while it was visible in Google Maps street view, it wasn't visible in the pictures. For instance, how would you feel about living next door to any of the following:
A dump or junkyard that caused smells to impact your air quality & enjoyment of your house
A loud bar
A busy street (i.e. interstate with no sound barrier)
A commercial facility
A next-door neighboring home that is decrepit & condemned
It's best to look at whatever virtual tour is available prior to requesting a showing. In some cases, you'd save a trip to a distant property by taking that virtual tour online first.
The listing status (in this case pending) is important to note if it's anything other than active by the time you reach out to your agent (especially if that's days after it got to you).
Year built is best to at least acknowledge so that if it has many problems characteristic of homes of certain decades, you're not surprised when you get there. In case you're wondering, I generally don't recommend filtering properties by year in a search unless looking for new construction. Some older properties are in better condition than brand-new homes (especially when compared to new manufactured homes, which is a viable option to filter out from some searches if desired).
Middle of Listing from REIN MLS Portal: Pictures, Remarks, & Notes Section for Your Personal Reference
Be sure to go through all the pictures & read through the public remarks.
Here's an example taken directly from a listing where doing that would be important:
"...You will be purchasing this property sight unseen. ROOM COUNT IS APPROXIMATE. CASH ONLY... No financing contingencies. NO HARD MONEY AS THERE WILL NEVER BE ANY ACCESS PRIOR TO SETTLEMENT. NO APPRAISALS, NO INSPECTIONS. NO CONTINGENCIES for ANYTHING... SOLD STRICTLY AS IS WITH NO REPAIRS, WARRANTIES OR VIEWINGS DO NOT DISTURB OCCUPANTS..."
Sometimes the pictures will include pictures of the neighborhood or nearby area amenities, especially near the end of the pictures of a listing.
The notes section on the right should primarily be used for your personal reference. If you have questions or comments for your agent, send them a text or call them instead of using the notes section, unless you have notes or questions on more than 1 property at a time, in which case it's best to use the home purchase considerations spreadsheet that has been sent to you (often after buyer brokerage) for your questions & then alert your agent via text or call once that's ready.
Image courtesy REIN
3rd Section of Listing from REIN MLS Portal: General Description - Market Time, HOA/Condo Fees, Disclosures, School Districts
Image courtesy REIN
If you wanted to narrow down by some of the above, it's best to do that directly in the search with your agent rather than waiting until a property comes up so that you're not wasting your time, as indicated by a *.
Date Entered/Market Time (best to know in order to know how quick to a showing you should be; the shorter the market time, the hotter properties tend to be. Related: Expeditious Showings)
HOA/Condo Fees (* if REIN - it's ineffective in some MLS portal searches like WBG MLS). Even if REIN & you have restricted amounts, it's still important to check the combined fee since REIN has effective caps possible on the fees separately but not combined.
Disclosures (*i.e. Short Sales in some MLS like REIN)
4th Section of Listing from REIN MLS Portal: Property Features - Style, Acreage, 1st Floor Bedrooms, Parking
Style is best weeded through via search criteria, as is stories number.
REIN MLS filters out any property where the agent neglected to include the acreage, which can be 50% of properties listed, so in REIN, acreage criteria is typically not best.
Some MLS, REIN included, require agents to state if a property has a 1st-floor bedroom & full bath, so if you're looking for that in REIN, it's fine to include that criterion in your search. In other MLS, that may not be the case.
Some MLS have a lot more detailed options for parking than others, but keep in mind that agents cutting corners may not include any garage information besides the fact that it has one. That said, in REIN, 97.7% of active listings for garages as of the date of this publication include whether a garage is 1 car attached, 2 car attached, 3+ car attached, 1 car detached, 2 car detached, or 3+ car detached. It's not a bad idea to include that criterion if a garage is important to you and you're looking for a 2+ car garage and have at least 20 properties in your criteria.
Image courtesy REIN
5th Section of Listing from REIN MLS Portal: Utility - Heating, Cooling, Water Type, & Sewer Type
While heating & cooling can often be filtered through in a search, & buyers I work with not considering fixer-uppers often want to exclude coal heat, no heat, and no AC, it's still important to look at the heating and cooling just in case you didn't notice the type in the listing. For instance, if a property has oil heat, the costs are typically going to be higher. If the property was already one teetering on the edge of whether you want to see it or not, that could be notable. Likewise, if a property has only window units, & you didn't notice in the pictures, that's notable as well.
Common water type and sewer types I filter out are when it states "none". I typically don't recommend that buyers weed out properties with septic/well vs public (or vice versa) but let me know if you'd prefer more filtering than that. For investors, & those buying with $ or a reno loan, you might want to include properties with no water or sewer.
Image courtesy REIN
Agent Remarks That You Won't See Directly Without an Agent
There are typically agent remarks that are not visible to the public, but that are visible to your agent as long as they have access to the right MLS. One example I noticed locally was that while the HOA & Condo fees were each listed as $0, in the agent remarks, it included the statement: "New Owner will pay $915 per month for lot rent".
Conversely, on Zillow, I see no sign of lot rent beyond the fact that it's a manufactured home that does not appear to be on a permanent foundation, and I see the other manufactured homes present in the same community visible in pictures.
You might think that the listing agent would share with you the full agent remarks minus anything prohibited (i.e. lockbox codes) prior to a showing if you contact them, but that's often not the case. They have a strong financial incentive for you to see a property with them and buy the house, even if it means less transparency. In fact, they would be in breach of their duties to the seller if they were as transparent with you based on their knowledge as a typical buyer's agent who didn't have any client-based obligations to the seller beyond duties to customers.
If You're not Looking on MLS, Check for Phantom Property Availability
In certain markets, many homes listed on websites like Zillow are under contract but it is impossible to tell without direct agent contact. How prevalent are active contingent homes in Hampton Roads? 41% of Houses Entered 7-40 Days Ago as of 6/10/23. That said, markets vary, and it's not nearly as big of an issue in the Greater Richmond area nor in the Northern Neck due to different MLS policies.
Agent Restricted Items to Look for Prior to Requesting a Showing:
Agent Restricted Items Introduction
Keep in mind that even under brokerage my advice is limited by law, so it's important to do your due diligence when searching for things that have protected class implications, such as the importance of checking for the crime of an area or the school districts of an area (SE VA Districts) yourself using available resources for that I share about & making sure that you are comfortable with those yourself. If I were to point out that a property had high crime or a bad school district, I could be accused of steering.
If you'd like to look at an area online with your agent, there isn't any rule against that, and I can help guide you in the navigation process including using remote desktop if desired over Zoom, but the agent's ability to share their opinion on the area is going to be limited due to fair housing law. After you get the hang of things with your agent, you should check these visuals yourself to see if they are alright with you prior to showings.
Some of the best resources I've published to help you objectively explore areas include the following:
Agent Restricted Items Potentially: Get an idea of the neighborhood values by going to Zillow. or larger area values on Neighborhood Scout
Get an idea of the neighborhood values by going to Zillow.
Image courtesy Zillow
If the home you're looking to see is double the price of all neighboring properties, keep in mind that you can change a house, but it's much harder to change a neighborhood, and the real estate principle of regression is at play in these circumstances, where the surrounding homes can bring the value down of a very nice property. I've seen it happen where a seller I was representing had the nicest home in the neighborhood under contract for $500k, only for the appraiser to knock the price down by around $50k, with the buyer ready to walk if the seller hadn't come down. That said, I've also worked with buyers who really wanted a home, and who were willing to sacrifice some neighborhood qualities in order to have the new construction home they wanted. The decision is ultimately up to you, but it's best to be informed.
Though they never took it anywhere to my knowledge, & I was never brought before the Virginia Real Estate Board over it (or for anything else at the time of this publication), I've actually been accused by a listing agent before that I steered a buyer (with "steering" being illegal) simply by pointing out to the buyer that the nearby homes of a property were around half the cost of the subject property. I would argue that I didn't steer, but it wasn't a new agent who accused me. It's best for buyers to check themselves in this arena to limit buyer agent liability whose license is at stake if they are convicted of steering.
More details:
If looking to see what the overall values (or median income) are in a larger area, whether for your search creation or when looking at a specific property, Neighborhood Scout has a good option for it.
Image courtesy Neighborhood Scout
Agent Restricted Items: Check For Crime
Be sure to check for the crime of an area.
In my article on the subject I suggest 3 places to go:
https://spotcrime.com/ - actual recent crimes of an address
https://crimegrade.org/ - a color coded map by zipcode
https://www.nsopw.gov/ - the sex offender registry
Agent Restricted Items: Check School Districts
While you'll typically be able to get an otherwise better home in a worse-rated school district for the same price (even within the same neighborhood), if you're planning on putting kids through public schools, I highly recommend checking the school districts of an area. I have a spreadsheet for SE VA school districts here with some historic information that is helpful if looking to create an MLS-based search filtering by school districts.
If you're not in SE VA, or want the latest information for SE VA school districts, go to Greatschools or Niche, which both provide different algorithms for school quality.
If you're not looking in SE VA, and there aren't any agents in your area who have created a spreadsheet like mine, & you don't want to list the school districts to your agent, consider a search on Zillow that filters by school district ratings. I've been told by the VA Realtors legal hotline that if a buyer tells me that they want a certain school district rating or higher, for me to abide by that request is getting in murky water legally speaking, but that it's fine for me to keep my public school spreadsheet for buyers (which I can sort by ratings) who can use it to create a search with me by sharing each of the individual schools they're looking for by copying/pasting or sharing verbally.
Agent Restricted Items Potentially: Visuals Generally & Get a Visual From An Aerial View
Whether the listing has aerials, whether you look at the aerial view on the map view of the listing, whether you're looking on Google Maps, or otherwise, it's a good idea to get an aerial visual of a home and the surrounding neighborhood from above.
Image above courtesy REIN MLS
When checking the area on the map, be sure to note the size of homes nearby in comparison to a considered property as well as if there are any apartments nearby. In some cases, public housing can be present nearby (map of top 50 metros including Hampton Roads & Richmond). With apartments & with some commercial properties, there won't be the lot line divisions like you will see on attached condos, as you see on the left below.
To shift from the map view to the aerial view on Google Maps, click on the layers tab at the bottom left of the desktop/laptop view:
Image courtesy Google Maps
Some people, for instance, wouldn't be comfortable right next to a trailer park, while others might be fine with purchasing within a trailer park. The same is true of those considering property near commercial areas (especially certain types of businesses like bars & junkyards) and landfills that may smell when the wind is blowing in a certain direction when it's hot outside:
Image courtesy Google Maps
It's important to note that homogeneity is an important element of value. A house alone in the middle of a commercial area (& especially industrial areas) can negatively impact its value in many cases when residential is clearly its "highest & best use", though a situation like City Center where a group of homes are together in a community that includes walkable commercial shops & businesses is a different story where the walkable nature of the community to shops is marketable.
Image by author
If there's junk in a neighbor's yard in the aerial view, and no views of that home from pictures within the listing, you might find junk upon going there. Keep in mind that within Google Maps, the image capture date is often displayed & important to note for the accuracy of that being current.
Agent Restricted Items Potentially: Get a Visual From A Street View (Google Maps)
Google Maps is again an excellent resource for visuals from the street:
Look for images courtesy Google Maps like these from the desktop view to click on:
Oncee clicked, those give 3D views like these:
They also allow zooming in on places & moving around down the street.
Agent Restricted Items Potentially: Get a Visual From A 3D View (Google Maps)
Within Google Maps you can go from an aerial view to a 3D view with the click of the "3D" tab:
Here's the same area in 3D Mode:
Images courtesy Google Maps
To navigate 3d mode on a PC, click and drag like you typically would in 2D mode to go from place to place on the map, and also click ctrl while holding down and dragging to shift the orientation angle. Zooming in is also possible either directly in your mouse or by double clicking an area on your mouse.
Keep in mind that rural areas often aren't possible in 3d view, where the tab doesn't really do much since the image remains flat.
For more content to research, see my Master Spreadsheet for Prospective Home Purchase Considerations.
Search/Showing Related:
Area Related:
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