Imagine a homebuyer is scheduled to close on the perfect home, but then a sex offender moves in nearby or an adjacent property is registered as a former drug lab.
She might not discover these changes until she’s already bought the property, potentially resulting in buyer’s remorse.
Homefacts.com is the latest website to offer a way for people to hedge against this dreaded scenario.
Consumers can now keep a closer eye on properties and neighborhoods by signing up for free alerts that can tell residents or prospective buyers everything from when local crime rates tick up to when nearby properties fall into foreclosure.
AddressReport is among other services that provide similar notifications.
While consumers can use apps and at least one website to sign up for alerts whenever a registered sex offender moves into a neighborhood, Homefacts claims to be the only neighborhood portal that offers these notifications while providing the addresses and photos of the offenders.
One place Homefacts invites consumers to sign up for these alerts is in the sex offender data section of property pages, encouraging users to “Get Alerted to Registered Offenders.”
Other real estate attributes covered by the alerts include changes in a home’s value, the sale of nearby properties and the registration of environmental hazards such as superfunds, brownfunds and leaking tanks.
Homefacts is owned by RealtyTrac, which also operates realtytrac.com and HomeDisclosure.
