DROdio Real Estate

One of the most powerful features of www.TheBestHomeSearchEver.com is its ability to search the listing notes. Here's what that means, and why you'd want to use it.

Did you know? You can search the MLS for just foreclosure properties by checking the "Search only Foreclosure" checkbox on www.TheBestHomeSearchEver.com when you're searching for homes.

First, a bit of background on how listings are put into the MLS system, called "MRIS" in our area: A listing agent has to determine a number of things about the listing - what style it is (victorian, colonial, etc.), how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, etc. One of the things that a listing agent has to do is mark an itsy bitsy little checkbox if the property is near the Metro. Many listing agents don't even know that the checkbox exists, because it's pretty buried in the listing form. So if you use the standard "close to Metro" search, not that many properties show up, because many listing agents neglect to checkmark the box when creating the listing.For example, of 114,793 currently active properties showing on TheBestHomeSearchEver.com (which is the entire MLS), only 2,026 properties have the "close to Metro" checkmark marked. How do we know this? Because if you go to the "bargain hunters" tab on TheBestHomeSearchEver.com and click the "Within 1 mile of a metro station" checkbox, that's how many properties show up. Here's what it looks like on the site (click to enlarge):

But what almost all listing agents do when a property is close to the metro is write "Close to Metro!" or "Walk to Metro" in the listing notes. So why not search for the word "Metro" in the listing notes? Well, that's exactly what you can do with TheBestHomeSearchEver.com! There are 2 ways to do this. The first way is just to checkmark the box on our site that says "Search for listings that have the word "metro" in the descriptions", like this:

And do you notice that now 6,482 properties show up?! We consistently see three to four times as many listings show up when we search the listing notes instead of using the listing checkbox. And if you want to play it safe, you can check both boxes on our site. Under that scenario we get 7,313 results.The other way to accomplish this same thing is to go to the "Property Details" tab where it says "Search the Listing Notes." Here's what that looks like:

And as you've probably guessed, you can search for all kinds of things with this tool! Try searching for "woods" if you want a property that backs to woods. Or try searching for "foreclosure" if you're looking for foreclosures. (Actually, foreclosures go by several names - we suggest you checkmark the "search the listing notes for foreclosures" box, which does the hard work for you and puts in all the possible terms.)Enjoy your new-found power!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm and was filed under All the questions you were afraid to ask, The Buying Process, drodio.com. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.