HotPads is designed to offer lots of relevant information to people looking to buy new homes. It has a wealth of useful information which makes searching for your next house much easier than it would otherwise be. It makes it possible to locate the ideal areas by using demographic and housing maps which allow people to instantly assess certain areas. Another really useful feature is that the maps also highlight useful facilities such as schools and hospitals. HotPads was initially aimed just at the rental market, however they launched a for sale search engine so that people can use it to search through over 2,000,000 listings. HotPads also has a useful search portal where homebuyers can search for rental and purchase properties alongside each other and compare them base on estimated costs.
HotPads was founded in May 2005 by three university classmates from Notre Dame University. In 2005 it was aimed just at the rental market, however in 2007 they added a for sale database of properties.
There are a number of nice features to hotpads, one of the nicest being that you can search for rental and to buy properties at the same time and compare the monthly costs. This makes it possible to compare and decide whether it’s better for you to rent or buy a house.
HotPads.com is a very nice site to use, it’s designed to be simple and easy for everyone to use. It’s very easy to use to locate properties to rent or buy. The tabs at the top can select properties for rent, sale and vacations. It’s then possible to search for properties by searching for a location or looking on a map. There’s also a large state map down the bottom of the screen which you can select states that you are interested in purchasing properties in. You must have adobe flash player installed to use the site to all of its advanced features. It’s also possible to switch between rental and for sale properties in the main search screen. The site itself is nice however it seems to be quite slow and at times the results won’t display at all, there is an option to use a text search however you only get this option if you don’t have flash player installed.
Registering for an account with hotpads is very simple; it’s exactly the same as a normal registration form but slightly more in depth. You will also have to choose a security question and complete the captcha test. You will then automatically be logged into your account; you will be sent an email however you don’t need to confirm anything.
HotPads is completely free to use.
HotPads is an ideal solution for anyone wanting to find a property to buy or rent, it’s also possible to find a vacation property for that perfect holiday. If you want to find a new house then this is a particularly useful site.