You have probably heard of CarFax, the historical report you can get on a car?
Now there is HouseFax:
Warning – if you sign up for the free report, they will pepper your cell phone with solicitations.
The last bastion of protected real estate information is the tax rolls. They are included on the MLS, but only realtors or appraisers can join that club.
Now for only $19, the public can see everything realtors see, and more – property descriptions, building permits, mortgage history, insurance claims, natural hazards – even cell-phone reception!
The $19 cost is probably the right amount – the public will only spend the money on homes that really interest them, without it being exorbitant. But it does break down the only remaining barrier of protected information.
If a company like Housefax can devise a realtor-access package for a reasonable amount, it would just about make the MLS extinct.
Kayla has already found that using Zillow is much more effective than the MLS. The Zillow mobile app is far superior; it shows recent sales nearby, the assigned schools, and an estimate of value – the MLS doesn’t include any of those.
With more agents uploading their listings to Zillow a few days before MLS input, it has become the go-to source. Zillow is also making portals like Realtor.com and Redfin extinct too, because those rely on MLS data only.
With the tax rolls out in the open, we don’t need the MLS – at least not the old clunky MLS we have now. But you sure don’t hear about any upgrading being planned to bring the MLS into the modern era!
The tax rolls in most juristictions are on line, and you can also from the property section when the house was last sold as well as recorded mortgages. Insurance claims and natural hazards not so much however. The big thing is one stop shopping for this information however. For insurance here is a link to a lexus/nexus report.https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/fact_act_disclosure.jsp.
The tax records in Arizona are public – both the Assessor and Tax Collector records are on-line. Recorded documents are on-line. Over the years, ARMLS has tried a couple of providers to incorporate tax information into listings. The current provider is Monsoon, which was built locally IIRC.
There is a tab at the top of the listing detail page page that brings up current and past owners, loan history, current and the past few years of taxes, a map of the property, a link to google and bing maps, links to the property’s past listings and the listing history of neighboring properties, flood information, and probably more I can’t think of offhand.
This system works with the MLS but does not replace it. Lots of agents have gone out of business in the last few years, but that’s because there are about 20,000 active listings in ARMLS vs. the 60,000 in the foreclosure boom time. No one wants to sell unless they have to (or they are Canadian investors…) and qualified buyers are few and far between.