You are around the world wide web quite a lot these days, especially if you are searching for that Dream home or investment property. There are a huge amount of resources, but which one do you trust.
How does the machine work with regard to viewing homes and Real Estate for sale? How can you be sure that what you are looking at is still available? I will lay on you some facts of the Real Estate Search Game.
All properties that are available for sale by Banks – Foreclosures etc. are almost certainly placed into the Multiple Listing Service at whichever local Board of Realtors houses the data. There is no way on God’s Green Earth that the banks would want to cut out thousands of starving agents in order to increase their net. In fact, their net will lose in the long run if they do not trust those “hungry” agents in bringing someone to the table to assist in the sale of that Asset. So don’t go out there and pay for lists, and don’t be sucked into someone’s database unless they have a “no spamming” policy. Also, make sure that the data they send you is not self serving – Example: only their listings and no one else’s.
What about other properties for sale? Good question, I would say this, most of the talk about pocket listings and specials that are not on the market yet, especially in a declining market, are just rouses and hooks to get your info. Don’t fall for it. Would you take less for you home than you could get? Would you trust one person to pass along to his sphere of influence, which by sheer numbers is dwarfed in comparison with the total sphere created by other agents out there that are trying to support themselves and their families? I am sure not.
The local Boards of Realtors and the Multiple Listing Services. All you have to do is go into Google and type in the city and board of Realtors, week through the junk and find the Official Association of Realtors. “Realtor” is a trademarked term so if you are seeing that in a URL then it is probably led-git. I know from personal experience after I was called by a nice man to correct my use of the term.
With those Boards of Realtors, you will find they have a Real Estate MLS feed that you can inquire about properties for sale. Furthermore, they might even have a resource to set you up on a autopilot search as well.
Realtor.com – Great resource and I believe in that product. It is country wide – updated as much as possible for its size and there are no hooks. But this resource depends on the speed of the servers and the Local Boards of Realtors updating Realtor.com. What you will see is the Showcased first, given a choice of properties that have virtual tours and multiple pictures. But you might miss the vision of the perfect home if you disallow properties without pictures. Maybe the agent did not have any to input and was facing a time line to get the property onto the market. Maybe he will be adding pictures and a virtual tour later. My suggestion is to first search on Realtor.com and then find a, more close to the source, source.
The Paris911 Team at RE/MAX of Valencia and Santa Clarita has many options that all feed directly from the Local Boards of Realtors. I will not utilize a product that does not update many times a day. I also don’t like those products that allow add on’s from the already existing listings that are entered into the Board of Realtors. (too tempting for agent to modify items in order to get a larger inquiry base)
So, Southern California Real Estate Searches – go to http://MLS911.com and utilize our IDX map product or if you are about the automatic updates then go to http://ListingBook911.com.
Both are wonderful and great with multiple updates and a constant connection to the Local Board of Realtors.
Look for our debut site http://ConnorWithHonor.com – this will also utilize a direct feed from the local Board of Realtors, you will be happy you did. All great ways to one end – your satisfaction and protection.
Comments (0)