Oct. 20, 2006: Online real estate search can be fun, but it offers too few details
Have you played with any of the national real estate search engines? You've probably been to Realtor.com, but you may not have made time for RealEstate.Yahoo.com.
Two new entrants can be fun to play with: Trulia.com and PropSmart.com. Because these systems don't have access to MLS systems, they depend on voluntarily submitted listings.
Ultimately, though, national real estate sites throw away too much detail to offer more than an exploratory glimpse into the homes they list.
What do I mean? Is the roof shingle, tile or slate? Is that pool I can see dimly in the gee-whiz satellite photo in-ground or above-ground?
I don't even like locally available consumer-level MLS access. Some systems provide more detail than others, but there is nothing like the kind of control that comes from having full access to hundreds of unique data fields. If you can't search to a very short list of high-probability candidates, one of which is the home you will end up buying, what you have is not a home search but a wish book.
If you're doing a transcontinental relocation, you need more search power than you currently have available. At a minimum, you need a Realtor to feed you more rigorous results than you can get on your own. Moreover, you probably wouldn't know how to do the search you want done anyway. The idea that Realtors have lost control of the MLS is absurd. If you want to make that data dance the way I do, you have to do it as much as I do.
The other end of this is that for a local search, a buyer doesn't need much from the MLS to pick out her next house. She might have picked it out years ago and is just waiting for it to come onto the market. This is why an $800,000 house may actually entail less labor for the Realtor than a $200,000 house, because the home search doesn't have very much to do with the MLS system.
Greg Swann is the designated broker for BloodhoundRealty.com, a full-service Metropolitan Phoenix real estate brokerage. This article originally appeared in the West Valley regional sections of the Arizona Republic.
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