17th
This would be a Kick Ass Real Estate Website
Last night a friend of mine came over who is a realtor. I was asking him about a house that is for sale down the street. He grabbed my computer and logged into his MLS account. For those that don’t know MLS is THE company for real estate data. Some of it is available for public browsing but most of the data is behind a pay wall and only available to realtors.
Anyway while we were looking at the info, I noticed that the MLS showed the mortgage amount on the property. I asked him if that was only for properties that are for sale and showed me that you could look up any property and see their mortgage amount.
Mortgages are public record. From what I understand you can walk into any city hall and request the data, however that is incredibly cumbersome. A website that allowed the public to see this information I think would be both incredible popular and valuable.
Sure their would be your snoopy neighbor who would use it to see what everyone owes but there is a greater good. Imagine that you just got a job in Las Vegas, a place with very high foreclosures, you could look on a heat map to find the area that has the lowest amount of houses upside down on their mortgages. Then buy your next house there.
Additionally if something like this became popular it might create social pressure to put more money on your mortgage. It would be funny to find out that the “rich” guy with the brand new Porsche down the street is upside down on their mortgage…
