Hotpads Gives You the Monthly Breakdown
We haven’t heard much from Hotpads recently over the last year, but thankfully all is not lost for the property search engine. They just launched a new feature on their site that introduces a new search variable to the mix - the rent vs. buy decision. From their press release:
In the down real estate market more housing shoppers are wrestling with the Buy vs. Rent decision. Now HotPads users can see immediately what they can afford in both scenarios and are given the tools necessary to make a sound financial decision.
So - how it works.
When users click the Buy vs. Rent tab above the map, both For Sale and For Rent listings are returned in the search results on the map. For Sale listings have a monthly cost associated with them that take mortgage payments including interest rate, down payment, and term length into account. As users adjust their pricing criteria on the map, homes for sale and rent appear and disappear respectively. This allows users to see exactly what properties they can afford to buy and rent.
It’s definitely an interesting approach. And I’m definitely all for introducing new ways to search for property online.
Being able to adjust a slider to see properties based on the question “How much a month would this cost me?” is a novel idea and it definitely fits with the way most consumers approach a buying decision these days. Heck, it’s certainly the first question I always ask myself when I am looking at new homes.
Of course, there are all kinds of additional factors that go into the monthly cost that this tool ignores (it’s really just a simple mortgage calculator), but as another starting point it is a very interesting way to search for homes. I found myself having a lot of fun weighing one property versus another based on their monthly costs.
Unfortunately, while the concept is intriguing, 4Realz calls Hotpads’ implemention of the feature a bit baffling - and I tend to agree. It took me a few minutes to figure out how it was supposed to work. I also think to call the search ‘Buy vs. Rent’ is a little confusing - ‘Monthly Cost’ might have made it a little bit more clear.
The best part of this however, is that I don’t think any of the search sites; Trulia, Zillow, Move.com, Redfin, have totally nailed the search experience yet. It’s great to see some new innovation in the space and companies continuing to challenge the status quo a little bit.
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Thomas Johnson | Dec 11, 2007 | Reply
What be da muntly?
A very cool widget, however, with loan origination costs rising by the minute, FNMA just added a 1/4% to originations. This will be only about as accurate as a Zestimate.
The borrower’s loan will be vastly different than the result here. Like a Zestimate, an interesting talking point to be sure, but accurate? Hardly.
I also saw no provision for the calculation of opportunity cost on the downpayment. Remember those?
Douglas Pope | Dec 11, 2007 | Reply
Thomas,
For this first go around HotPads wanted to keep things simple and easy to understand…so for searchable monthly costs we only have mortgage payments on For Sale properties. We included the rest of the financial factors in the “Rent vs. Buy” calculator, which can be found inside all of the listings, but here is a direct link: http://hotpads.com/mortgageCalculator.htm .
After feedback from the industry… we have decided to change the monthly cost calculation on the search results to include other financial factors. We are working on that now. It is kind of difficult to do without clutter on the search menu… there are a lot of factors that go into the Rent vs Buy decision!
Thanks for your feedback!
Douglas Pope
hotpads.com
andrew | Dec 13, 2007 | Reply
Interesting stuff. The monthly payment slide bar reminds me of Bluenile.com’s price slide.