Due Diligence – How Far is Too Far?

As a real estate sales professional, you know that business isn’t always easy. The economy and market largely determines whether there will be a feast or a famine. Whether you have an abundance of prospects or deals on the go or not, you have many expenses to consider as it relates to the different aspects of your role as a real estate sales professional.

Staging of properties, advertising, gas, etc… your ongoing expenses can be sky high. This is not to mention the costs incurred if you land a client. While due diligence has always been the role of a real estate lawyer in a real estate transaction, more and more real estate sales professionals have an increased demand to perform due diligence to vet their deals. 

But how far is too far and how much should one really spend to perform due diligence? This is an ongoing source of conversation in the social stratosphere as real estate fraud is rampant and real estate sales professionals need to be able to focus their time on good deals that have a high probability of closing.  

There are many tools available to real estate sales professionals that do different things, and gather data from different sources; knowing which one offers the best source of data, and is reliable can be a daunting experience. 

When choosing a real estate tool that possesses elements that enable you to perform due diligence, here is a short list of some of the things you may want to look for:

1.      What is the source of the data and how current is it? It is very common for real estate software providers to offer solution data that is a month or so old, while others only provide access to data that can be months and even years old. A good solution will provide you with the ability to validate up-to-date data if you need it.

2.      Can you get everything in one place? Where due diligence is concerned you want to be able to validate home ownership information, sales history information, mortgage details, comparable sales in a particular neighbourhood, access condo status certificates, check if there are liens on a property, access surveys, the property’s Parcel Register, view instrument images and MPAC assessment reports and more…

3.      How reliable is the application? Is it available online? How accessible is it? Is the provider reliable? Does it often crash or produce errors?

Thanks to technology, you can’t really ever go too far where due diligence is concerned because a small investment in a good application can do wonders and make you that much more efficient. 

For more information about real estate technology and performing due diligence please visit www.geowarehouse.ca or call 1-866-237-5937.