BRER Real Estate Marketing Blog

You Do Have a Home Search on Your Website, Don’t You?

If you are a real estate agent or broker, you probably have a real estate website.  If you don’t, you’re getting into deeper trouble every day.  Take a look at the reasons why you need a real estate website, and get one - fast.

Assuming you do have a website, one of the decisions you made at some point was the type of home search you would provide for your visitors.  If you have a real estate website, but you don’t offer a home search for your area, you need to review our Big Ten things you should look for in a real estate website.

If you have a home search, you evidently know that one of the key reasons Internet buyers and sellers visit online sites is to search for homes.  Buyers are checking out the market and sellers are checking out the competition.

Alternatives for Adding a Home Search

You are typically faced with two alternatives for providing an online home search.  First, the MLS you belong to may provide a search that you can incorporate into your website.  The advantages to using the search provided by your MLS is that those search capabilities are usually either free or very low-priced.  But, that may not be your best alternative.

Your second alternative is to find a third-party IDX MLS vendor.  There are a number of advantages to using this type of a search.  Third-party vendors provide a number of additional capabilities that benefit you and your site visitors.  At a minimum, those vendors typically provide the ability for your site visitors to establish an account and login to your home search.   The result is that:

• Your can start a relationship with your site visitors.  You can use that contact from your site visitor to start establishing a relationship and to tailor your services to their needs.  (See What To Do with Your Leads, Part I and Part II).
• Your visitors can save home search criteria.  There is nothing more boring than entering the price range of homes, number of bedrooms, etc etc  You can help make your site “sticky” by letting your visitors define a search once, save it, and then quickly re-run the search when they visit your site again.
• Your visitors can save listings.  When a site visitor finds a listing of interest, they can “save” that listing and find it again easily - another big time saver.
• Your visitors can request automatic e-mail updates.  When homes that meet their search criteria are added to the MLS, they will automatically receive an e-mail notification.  This saves time for your visitor, and you’re not responsible for manually setting up an automatic notification with your MLS.  It’s a win-win situation.

But, My MLS Doesn’t Provide a Third-Party Alternative

Don’t be so sure!!  In my experience, there are three ways an MLS organization approaches the issue of third party IDX vendors.

1. There are absolutely no third party IDX vendors
2. There are third party IDX vendors approved by the MLS and very often those companies are listed on the MLS website - or, if you call the MLS, the person responsible for the online search will give you the names of the third party vendors
3. There are third party vendors who can supply you with a home search for your MLS listings, but the vendors are not listed on the MLS website, and the MLS employees will often swear to you that no such vendors exist

I’ve never been able to figure out how the third category came to be.  But, there has been more than one time where clients and I have checked with the MLS, only to be told theirs was the only alternative.  Then, a bit of web surfing proves the opposite.

This post was inspired by a conversation I had today with a member of ECAR (Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS).  While the agent had never heard of any third party vendors, and the MLS website does not list any, if you’re in that part of Florida, you’ll be glad to know that there are at least two very viable 3rd party IDX MLS vendors for your website.