Home Buying Guide – Must-Have Online Real Estate Research Tools Every Buyer Needs

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Author’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness in May 2020.

Best Websites for Researching Homes in Thurston County WA

Here are three excellent websites available to the public to research a home you are considering purchasing:

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My favorite site as it contains a lot of great information all in one place is: www.Geodata.org.  For Thurston County properties, this site offers a lot of information about a property. 

Start with Online Maps > Property Map and enter the address. From there you can see a parcel map, real estate taxes, ownership history, zoning, school district, etc.  The mapping feature has many overlays so you can see if there are wetlands on your property, check out current and older aerial views, etc.   You can also see who owns an adjacent parcel.

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My next favorite site is for property research is:  www.onlineRME.com.  This site is especially important if the home you are researching has a septic system.  You can see the septic pumping history (pumper reports and septic drawings) and also look to see if there were any permits pulled for any work completed on the home.

Click on Report Search, and then select the county and input the address or parcel number.

Click on Service History to the right for septic pumping records.  I also like to View Scanned Images under the Site Details.

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The third most important website is the Thurston County Permitting Assistance Center.  This is perfect for not only researching a potential home but also as a homeowner, this site is an excellent source if you want to do future building projects. 

Here you’ll learn things such as if you need a permit to build a fence, links to the county assessor’s office to review your property taxes, and information on current building codes.  

This also has links to Geodata and OnlineRME in the Quick Tools:

 

City Websites

For properties within a city limit, you’ll want to check out building records on the city websites.

City of Olympia

For homes older than the 1970s typically, there are homes in Olympia that had oil heat and many of these oil tanks were underground.  Finding out if a property has had an oil tank decommissioned can be a challenging task.  Read more about how to research if a home has had an oil tank and if it has been decommissioned here.

Also check out the City of Olympia’s building department to search online records here.

City of Lacey

City of Tumwater

City of Yelm

Other Sites for Home Buying Research for homes in Olympia WA.

Crime Reports:

https://www.crimemapping.com/

https://www.spotcrime.com/

Thurston County Schools:
http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/county/WA/Thurston.html

Niche.com has a ranking site of schools.

Olympia School District

North Thurston School District (Lacey area)

Tumwater School District

Griffin School District

Yelm School District

Best Websites for Home Searches

The best websites for buyers to use when house-hunting are brokerage sites (versus third-party sites).  Brokerage sites simply are sites where brokers work, so sites like Coldwellbanker.com, JohnLScott.com, Windermere.com, Redfin.com are all brokerage sites.

Brokerage sites have all of the listings and have the most up-to-date information.

Third-party sites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, and Realtor.com sometimes do not list all of the active listings or will show a listing that has sold as now active.  

If you are looking for the most comprehensive and accurate information, choose a brokerage site.

You can even use my website, www.FrancineViola.com to search for homes.  The benefits of using my site are:

Save listings and be organized.  By logging in, you’ll have the option of saving listings and staying organized in your home search.

Rank listings.  As a signed up buyer, you will also have the opportunity to categorize which listings are your favorites and maybes.

Easily exchange your notes with me on listings you want to see.  You can easily exchange these notes with me, saving you time from emailing me which homes you’d like to see.

Get the latest listings emailed to you.  As a signed up buyer, you can be the first to know of a new listing that meets your criteria. In markets with low inventory and high buyer competition, this is an advantage to have.