Comments on: LA Times Examines Local Home Search Options

By: Leavenworth Real Estate - Geordie Romer

Leavenworth Real Estate - Geordie Romer — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:53:23 +0000

I wrote about this on my blog a while back with a slightly different take.

http://www.myleavenworth.com/2008/03/leavenworth-fsbo-for-sale-by-owner.html

I think we should admit that no site will ever have ALL the listings. Websites are fine for browsing, but for a serious buyer who wants all the options they should work with a local real estate professional who knows the market.

There are lots of reasons why a home is for sale, but not online. Some of them are good, some are horrible.

By: retrove

retrove — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:34:18 +0000

Hello Dustin,

I also agree. Data intergrity is very difficult… even for the MLS themselves. The issue is trying to update millions of records from all of the individual sources on a daily basis is even more difficult for the listing aggregators, hence the reason why were are addressing the issue from a different angle than all other real estate search sites by directing consumers directly to the listing sources.

The second issue not addressed in the LA times article is that even with the MLS listings it still represents only about 65%-70% of the homes for sale in an area. So based on the search there maybe as much as another 30 – 40 homes for sale that buyers would never find using the aforementioned sources.

Lastly the issue regarding data… as there is more syndication this issue of data integrity will only be compounded.

By: Shell Smith

Shell Smith — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:52:16 +0000

That is a very interesting experiment! Thanks for that idea - and for sharing the results. I agree that non-mls sites require some serious work on the part of the searcher. If they are willing to do that they might find what they are looking for - but why go through the hassle? I usually recommend the site PropertyMaps which has a google maps/mls tool. This one is pretty user friendly too. Thanks again for the input.

By: Linda Slocum - Santa Clarita Realtor

Linda Slocum - Santa Clarita Realtor — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:38:23 +0000

The non-MLS sites do indeed have more out-of-date listings. Many of these originate with manually entered listings on various sites, and when sold, these often don’t get updated. I had a client who wanted to see a home that seemed too low-priced to be for real, and when I finally located what he was looking at online, it turned out that it had been listed and sold years ago.