First time home buyers the best educated or most mis-educated?

First time home buyers entering today’s housing market are considered by many to be the best educated first time home buyers in history. The internet has given them access to more information than any generation of first time home buyers.

Unfortunately today’s first time home buyers may also be the most “mis-educated” first time home buyers in history. According to Thefreedictionary.com: mis-educate means to educate improperly.

Maybe a better definition would be to educate with misinformation?

“It must be true, I read it on the internet”, is intended to be a tongue in cheek statement but when that information agrees with something you’ve already been told, especially from friends and family members, it tends to become true in your mind and may be creating unrealistic expectations for you or mis-education.

Mis-education can  also be contagious. The information your parents, friends, family members and neighbors are sharing with you may also be leading to your mis-education.
Here’s an example:
Third party listing sites (Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com) attract millions of views each month because they give you easy access to homes for sale in your desired neighborhood. These sites are not real estate sites, they’re information platforms and they rely on information from local real estate brokers and use computer models. for their value estimates (weather forecasters use computer models too, and they’re 50/50 at best).

It’s easy to say their data is inaccurate, but here is an example of recent data from Trulia.com. Would you be “educated” after seeing this or “mis-educated”?:
“The median sales price for homes in Temecula CA for Jul 11 to Sep 11 was $1,000,000 based on 1 home sales.”
“The median sales price for homes in Temecula CA for Nov 11 to Jan 12 was $250,000 based on 1 home sales.”
Granted our sales aren’t as “robust” as they were a few years ago, but two sales in six months show that Trulia.com’s numbers don’t actually reflect what’s going on locally and if you’re relying on these numbers you’ve been mis-educated.

These third party sites are not without value, however.

They can save you a lot of time when you are only window shopping and haven’t decided on a location, price or agent. You can view homes, neighborhoods, and just about anything else you want to know while you put together your wish list.

When you’ve made the commitment to buy your first home, you’ll want more than a Realtor, you’ll want a Realtor who understands their local market, the first time home buyer programs available and gives you confidence that they are representing only your interests.
We’ve helped thousands of first time home buyers with their education and cleared up a lot of “mis-education” too. These first time homebuyers all did the same thing: they took the first step and contacted us.