There are a number of property search engines on Google to find properties for sale, but a very user-friendly one is that of Property24.
Property 24 has an excellent search function, which you can use to select:
- Properties for sale
- Properties to rent
For this example, we are going to click the For Sale option.
- Choosing the area or location
Once you have typed in the area in the search bar and then chosen the exact area you want to buy in, click on the SEARCH button on the right.
Once you have clicked SEARCH, every property for sale in the area that you have populated will be listed. In some instances, depending on the searched area, there may be pages and pages of property listings.
- Using the filters
Property 24 has several search filters that you can choose from to enable you to find properties for sale in the area you have selected that specifically address your needs. These filters include:
- Property type
- Selling price
- No of bedrooms or bathrooms
- Erf & Floor size
- Parking and garage facilities
- Property type
One of the filters you can click on is Property Type, which is probably the single most important filter, as this filter allows you to choose from:
- House
- Apartment/flat
- Townhouse
- Vacant land
- Farm
- Commercial Property
- Industrial Property
Clicking on one of these options will allow you to zero in on the specific property you would like to buy, for example, a house. This will substantially reduce the number of properties initially displayed.
- Selling Price
There are two filters you can use with regard to the selling price: a MINIMUM and MAXIMUM selling price.
These filters are key in identifying houses for sale for the price you can afford.
- Further filters
Should you only be looking for a house with a certain number of bedrooms, then you could click on the filter for bedrooms and then click on the number of bedrooms you require.
This will filter all the houses within your purchase bracket for the number of bedrooms you need.
- Determining rental income – most viable property
If you want to buy the Property for yourself, you don’t need to conduct any further due diligence apart from examining the pictures of the Property and its exact location per the photos.
If however, you want to buy a property to let, you will want to view what type of rentals one would expect to obtain in the area you initially chose.
Simply click on the RENT tab in the Search bar and click SEARCH. The site will then reflect all the properties to rent in the same area you initially selected.
Using the same number of bedrooms you selected previously will enable you to get an idea of what rentals can be obtained in the area and immediately calculate whether the house you are looking at buying is going to be a good investment.
- Determining expenses
Once you have determined that you will likely obtain the rentals required to make the investment feasible, you will need to determine the expenses to see whether the property you have earmarked as a potential investment.
Going back to the house that you initially identified, you can then use the Property 24 site to garner further information such as:
- Listing date (very important)
- Rates and taxes cost
- Erf size
- Zoning
- Features of the house
- Number of bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, etc.
- Proximity of local schools and shopping centres
- Bond calculator
Further to the information aforementioned, Property 24 has an amazing bond calculator tool that you can use to calculate what your monthly bond repayment will be for the Purchase price of the Property.
Once you have populated the purchase price, deposit, interest rate you are likely to receive from your bank and the loan term, the monthly repayment will be automatically calculated and shown on the page.
Simply clicking on the VIEW BREAKDOWN will reflect the:
- Monthly bond repayment amount
- Bond registration cost
- Property transfer cost
The Bond calculator goes further to cleverly calculate what your GROSS INCOME will need to be.
- Recent sales in the area
Just when you thought it couldn’t get better on this search engine, you can scroll past the Bond calculator function to view the recent sales in the area, the last sales price they were sold for, as well as the date the property was sold.
This again is vital information for your due diligence exercise in ensuring you are making an informed decision when buying a Property.
- Trends analysis
Property 24 has a further TAB that you can click at the bottom of the page for the Property you have clicked on.
It is called Trends and Statistics, and once you click on this, you will be able to view several graphs showing trends over the last ten years, such as :
- Annual sales and listing trends
- Monthly properties for sale
- Average asking price for a property per bedroom count
- Age profile of buyers and sellers
- Sold sectional title scheme units
Further to the trend analyses, the site allows the user to purchase a recent sales report for a small fee.
The PROPERTY 24 search site is an incredible tool for any Property investor or homeowner to use in finding the most suitable property to buy.