The Internet in more ways than one has been an essential tool when one is looking for information on just about anything – both the good and the bad. Those of us who are actively looking for a property to buy may it be for own stay or investment purposes use the web to look for listings or just to gather general information about property investments. There is huge caldron of information available and sieving through them to find what is of value is not easy since one have to navigate through thousands of websites.
Today am going to focus on property forums where people of common interests come together to get information on specific topics may it be related to property investment, house renovation, legal matters, financing, new property launches, and essentially anything and everything that is property related. Some of the more popular property forums include myrealestate, lowyat.net, realestate.net just to name a few.
I personally find these property forums hold a wealth of information and some of the forumers are very active investors and are more than willing to share their experience and knowledge. You can find real estate agents, mortgage brokers, bankers, etc using these forums and more of then not they are also there to source for business.
Some of the property forums are better than others and you can more or less rate it once you have had the chance to spend some time at each of these forums.
Having said that, I would exercise caution as well using these forums based on my own experience using these forums for more than a year :
- some of the experienced investors use the forum to hype up their own property purchases to create a buzz about a specific development to drive up interest in the property. Forumers with vested interest so to speak.
- forums could be monopolized by specific individuals and generally they do not welcome newbies or anyone that commits the “crime” of asking a question that they deem stupid for example, so watch out.. have seen how some new forumers have been literally beaten to a pulp (figuratively) and of course, they don’t return..
- some of the postings could be downright sexist and offensive.
- users should note that there are also a lot of misinformation in forums as well so have the information verified independently.
Having said that, I am of the opinion that generally forums are a great source of information as long as you are aware of the shortcomings and not rely on it solely – all information you wish to use should be reverified and reconfirmed independently.
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19 march 2011
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