Moving cross country — in our case from the NY metro area to San Francisco — is above all time consuming. Most of the time is invested in information gathering. To be sure, the Internet is an incredible resource. We prepared for an exhausting three-day schedule of back-to-back showings using Craigslist, a mashup of Craigslist and Google Maps, our own Google Map of potential targets, a virtual pre-screening via Google Earth, crime stats from the SF Police Department (e.g., here), and the Steven Levitt filter, i.e., ignore all listings that describe the place as charming (i.e., toxic mold dump), great neighborhood (i.e., worst house on the block), happening (i.e., drunks fighting in the streets at 3 am), etc. Still, despite cross checks and a healthy amount of skepticism, the inaccuracy of the information is maddeningly frustrating. Only about 25% of the homes we saw were adequately described. If ever an industry needed to move from pictures to walkthrough movies, it’s real estate!

A couple of random observations:

• After we had left San Francisco, it occurred to us that we never even thought of checking the local newspaper listings. The Internet really owns this space. In contrast, seven years ago, when we were looking in New York, the NYT was pretty much the only game in town.
• I learned a new term from a realtor: Costco pantry. “These days, everybody does their weekly shopping at Costco, right? So the big pantries are back!”
• House hunting is a great example of how pervasive the information economy has become and that it is in no way limited to software, media, telecommunications, etc. I recall a comment from Cory Doctorow that his computer illiterate barber is part of the information economy just because someone wrote about him on eOpinions. Same thing with real estate: Any sector where information drives demand is part of the information economy.

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