Getting the Most from Your Online New Orleans Property Search

A property search in New Orleans just ain’t what it used to be.

Young adults grew up with computers, so to them the advent of the connected world—the Internet—brought fewer startling lifestyle changes than it did for their parents and grandparents. But for anyone who thought the emergence of the Web would be the most lifestyle-changing technical innovation to happen in our lifetimes: SURPRISE! Now the whole circus has gone mobile—migrated into phones and tablets and who-knows-what other kinds of devices—all bluetoothed and wirelessed everywhere!

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The Wired World brought information into our offices and homes (to the dismay of encyclopedia and dictionary salesmen everywhere); now the Wireless World brings information to wherever we are at any moment (to the dismay of mapmakers and newspaper publishers everywhere).

Yikes! One of the most head-spinning results is the transformation of New Orleans property searches. Astoundingly, the NAR tells us that 62% percent of those who buy homes today view them first online! No wonder—the Internet has sped up our already busy lives, so our overloaded schedules make it all but mandatory to look for properties online first—before creating the list of properties we want to view in person.

One of the things you’ll notice immediately when you begin an New Orleans property search is the sheer number of results that can come up. That makes it all too easy to find yourself spending more search time than you’d like—sometimes even becoming overwhelmed. To make sure that doesn’t happen, there are a few shortcuts you can take to get the most out of every New Orleans online property search.

Prioritize  

A good first step is offline: before you click anywhere, make a list of all of the things that are absolute “must-haves” for your New Orleans home. This list will provide the basis for all your searches, and weed out time-wasters. Next, create a list of “nice to haves.” If your first list yields too many candidates, use this second one to narrow the field (if your in-person tours don’t pay off, you can always return to List One).

Narrow the Area

If you already know the general neighborhood you’d like to live in, use that to limit the search results. You don’t need to know the area intimately since many sites allow you to search by map or by radius from a specific location (like a school or workplace). 

Use Several Sites

There are literally hundreds of real estate search sites, so make it a point to look at those using New Orleans’s MLS (multiple listing service). They have the broadest assemblage of properties regardless of the listing agent. Online sites like Zillow.com and Trulia.com can also be useful in widening your New Orleans property search, frequently including homes that are for sale by owner—often not listed by the MLS service (though if you want a buyer agent’s help, you should make sure the owner is willing to work with your agent).  

Ready to start your property search here in New Orleans? Give me a call—I can send you new listings that meet your criteria the instant they come online!

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