Name: Zillow Talk
Rating: 3.7 (82 reviews)
Author: Spencer Rascoff and Stan Humphries

What’s in it for me? Discover all you need to know about buying or renting a house.

You’ve just had your first child. Your two-room apartment is overflowing with baby stuff and suddenly feels a little too small. Maybe it’s time to buy a house? However, as we all know, buying a house is a huge investment, and there are many questions that need to be answered before you take the step: Can you afford it? What’s the best area to buy in? Should you give it a luxury makeover?

You probably have a lot of preconceived ideas and assumptions about buying a house. You might think that just because you’re single and living in the city, buying a house is not an option. You might think it doesn’t matter what time of year you buy a house. You might even think that buying a house is always a good investment. As these blinks will show, all of these assumptions are wrong.

In these blinks you’ll learn

where you should buy;
why that new fancy bathtub you just installed won’t make your house more valuable; and
how a single word can have a huge impact on a house sale.

Determine whether buying is right for you and choose an up-and-coming neighborhood to maximize your investment.

Most of us associate homeownership with a family. But buying a home can be as advantageous for a single working woman as it can be for a family of four.

How can you know if buying is right for you? It could be because buying saves you money.

Zillow developed a tool called the break even horizon, which can help you determine whether it makes more financial sense to buy or rent.

Here’s how it works.

The break even horizon compares costs over time to determine how long it will take for the home you purchase to cost less than it would to rent the same property. It does this by calculating inflation and tax rates as well as property value.

If you use Zillow’s break even horizon tool and find out that you could actually save money by buying a house, you’re ready for the next step: deciding where to buy.

When choosing a neighborhood, it’s important to consider how it will transform in the years to come. After all, buying property is a huge investment and real estate prices are directly linked to location.

So, while it may be tempting to buy the best property in the most desirable area, a wiser financial decision is to buy property in up-and-coming neighborhoods.

Luckily, by following market trends you can determine how a neighborhood will change over time.

For instance, a part of the city with bad roads or little commercial activity can become a booming center of commerce in just a few years.

How?

Say you knew that a developer planned to build a shopping mall in the area by next year. A major commercial attraction like that would likely draw a new group of people to the area and start transforming the run-down neighborhood into a hip and attractive one.

As the atmosphere of the neighborhood improves so will the housing prices, thereby making your investment a sound one.

Instead of buying the worst house in the best neighborhood, buy the worst house in the hottest neighborhood.

Has anyone ever told you that buying the most run-down house in an expensive neighborhood is a good investment? Well, they’re wrong and you’d be surprised to hear just how disastrous that decision can be.

Think of it this way, when you buy the worst house in a wealthy neighborhood you are also buying the house with the least potential to rise in value.

Before buying a home, consider whether owning is right for you.

Do you remember in 2002 when President George W. Bush took measures to increase homeownership among low-income Americans? He declared that owning a home was a crucial part of the American Dream and should be accessible to everyone. Unfortunately, for some this dream turned into a nightmare.

That’s because home ownership isn’t for everyone, and here’s why.

Key ideas in Zillow Talk

What is Zillow Talk about?

Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate (2015) gives the reader all the tools they need to buy, sell or rent a home. From the conundrum of whether to rent or buy, to when to sell and how to boost the value of your property, these blinks shed light on the perennially important dilemmas of real estate – the biggest investment of your life.