Using the internet to carry out due diligence on real estate property

Very few people will contest the fact that the Internet ranks as one the most important inventions that humanity has been afforded. Well, for me the Internet is better than being just an invention; it’s a modern wonder of the world without doubt. The Internet is the best resource that the real estate investor can make use of especially when there arises the need to conduct property due diligence. It gets better…you are best placed to do the due diligence especially in counties where the tax rolls have been placed online.
If your county has taken this important step then you will find it really convenient that you can easily and hastily get vital information that will show you who owns a certain property, when it was bought, what its value was at the time, and how much tax was paid for it. In these counties you can find lots of information about a certain property even when you are armed with just a street address. The various details that you can download include the name of the property owner, the mailing address, dates and prices at which the property was sold, and the tax value that was remitted for the property (you can get this with the information having been broken down into both improvements and land).
Along with the above it is quite possible to access other handy details that will include among other things the site map that is plotted to show the various developments that have been done on the said property. Using the tax folio number or the street address you can access property tax information. This information will then help you to know if there are tax exemptions that have been claimed, if there are any exceptional tax-district assessments, and information on the status of tax payments.
The savvy real estate investor can make use of the Internet to perform due diligence on the property through the checklist method. This can be comfortably done from the confines of the office with only a PC connected to the Internet. You can proceed to link to the numerous sites that contain information on property, sales, ownership, tax assessment, economic records, demographic records, and crime records. Of course all these details are necessary when doing a thorough due diligence and the Internet will make your task pretty easy.
From the property tax roll you can obtain information that will offer you the names of all property owners in the county. This property tax roll is found in the assessor’s office or at the county property appraiser’s office. Each piece of land is assigned a unique tax identification number that is either in the form of an appraiser’s folio number, an APN, or an assessor’s parcel number. Instead of visiting the offices physically you can make use of the Internet to check whether the information about your county is available online. Simply indicate what the name of your state is by typing on the provided box in a chosen search engine and then click search.