One search site I'm looking at right now is enough.

Listing information, which used to be exclusively for agents in the past, has been fully disclosed, and now it is a system that allows buyers to directly check all the products on the market. Zillow, Homesnap, Realtor.com listed above, Trulia, Redfin, and more are all great. All of them are the same, so you only have to look at one without looking at this or that. When it comes to home sales, except in very special cases, it is rare that even agents have hidden sales information. (On the other hand, investors can target a handful of items that are not "normally" on the market, which is itself a full-time job. It is a difficult area for regular buyers (even agents).

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MLS → All the Rest

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Home sales in the United States begin with a seller giving an agent an Exclusive Listing. The agent that receives the listing uploads the listing to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). MLS is a vast listing database that only agents can view. Almost all of the homes that are normally on the market are listed on MLS. (From my experience, it doesn't seem too much to say that it is over 95%.)

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This is a system that embeds listing information on MLS from a third-party home search site. Until a few years ago, there were many errors and time lag in the process of transferring listing information to Zillow. But it has improved a lot over the years. Now, the time spent correcting incorrect listing information posted on Zillow and others to customers has been reduced a lot.

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You must look at the house by sorting out your priorities.

(Neighborhood> Location> Structure> Condition> Finishing material)

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This overflowing information was held in the hands of buyers, would it be beneficial or true? Of course, it is up to the buyer. Buyers generally tend to look backwards at the priorities listed above. The first thing buyers instinctively do in the home buying process is to go to the house. Without a systematic preparation process, I view photos of houses on my cell phone whenever I have a spare time. Then, when there is a house with a beautiful finish that has no bottom or end, you are interested. Then he goes to a mess and buys a house with agents and banks he doesn't know well. Later, when I woke up, I wasn't in town, not in school districts, not at home, not at prices, and on bad loans. Could this be? It's not just one or two people around me.

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On the other hand, some buyers use this information for sale in preparation for buying a house. I systematically narrow down my neighborhood and draw a blueprint for the type of house I want. And most of these people go through the process of finding, organizing, and finishing by finding an expert at the end.

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You should try to find a “good agent” as much as a good home.

In the age of overflowing information, the biggest mistake buyers make is to be able to buy a house by myself, and to watch the process of buying a house easily. Going home seems to be about 10% of what agents do when buying a home. Specific examples of what agents do to assist buyers can be found here. And once you have found a good agent , you have to take over. Anyway, the agents' intelligence is the same, so you don't have to go through multiple people, and if you spread them across multiple people, no one will work hard.

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In fact, I don't feel much of the need to emphasize the need for an agent. At least 10 years have passed since search sites such as Zillow have been activated, but before and now, the dependence of buyers on agents is like a lie. No matter what statistics, it turns out that 9 out of 10 buyers still buy homes through agents.

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One of the reasons is that buyers can see all of the listing information, but the tools and eyes to compare and digest the information cannot follow the agent. No matter how well Zillow and others are done, only the most basic information is provided compared to MLS. And what agents see (although more agents don't use these powerful tools…) systems like InfoSparks and RPR are also powerful tools to check market trends and detailed housing information at a glance.