This is me from today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link). This is the every-other-week softer-side-of-Greg column. The fireworks will resume next week.
Online searches fun but offer 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.
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Franz says:
I’d add that the problems you describe primarily affect larger market areas, such as yours. Here in Maine, if you start specifying a buyer’s favorite siding, roof, and other amenities, the number of property matches approaches zero very quickly.
It turns out that for most buyers, a price range and geographic area is enough to narrow things down. Then, the “hand selection” starts. This is where an experience broker really comes in handy.
Back to your point, do you see any reason Trulia & others couldn’t add more specificity?
October 20, 2006 — 7:36 am
Greg Swann says:
> Here in Maine, if you start specifying a buyer’s favorite siding, roof, and other amenities, the number of property matches approaches zero very quickly.
Actually, I can do that fairly easily here, too, if I start with something like Horses Allowed. After that, location can get us down to fewer then 10 properties.
> Back to your point, do you see any reason Trulia & others couldn’t add more specificity?
They’ve talked about it here and in email, and later today, if I have time, I plan to write about how MLS-quality searching can exist as an open-to-the-public free-market business.
October 20, 2006 — 7:53 am
jf.sellsius says:
We have always been interested in improving property search and have incorporated several search methods in our model. The reason being our limited consumer studies have given us mixed signals. Brokers and agents preferred a more precise drill down (to find that fixer upper with a tile roof)while consumers seemed to prefer an easy one click show me everything google-sift-needle-in-the-haystack type search.
October 20, 2006 — 9:04 am