I was out to dinner with some friends recently. They have busy lives of family, children, business and travel. So when the topic of searching for real estate on web sites came around they listened closely because felt like they were talking to an expert concerning real estate web sites.
Real Estate Web Sites are popping up all the time. Apparently, the American public has a hard time understanding the differences of real estate web sites. So this article helps to sort out everything in plain terms.
Following the source of information, Real Estate Web Sites can be categorized as follows:
- Local MLS Private Real Estate Web Sites
- National Aggregate Real Estate Web Sites
- Regional Broker Real Estate Web Sites
- Agent Real Estate Web Sites
- Single Property Real Estate Web Sites
Local MLS Private Real Estate Web Sites
When a property is listed for sale, it is usually done so through a licensed real estate company (or broker). The license is kinda like a drivers license in the sense that a person needs one to be able to practice real estate activities. This is important step because authorities can track people who do wrong and the licensed person can lose their license.
The broker collects the home information (beds, baths, etc) and put that information into a web site called the MLS (multiple listing service). The MLS is a private web site only accessible by real estate companies (and their agents and employees). They are local sites only, so agents in West Palm Beach can't access the MLS in Miami.
There is no rhyme or reason on boundaries for the Local MLS Private Real Estate Web Sites but they usually center around metropolitan areas (West Palm Beach, Orlando, Miami, etc). They kind of resemble political maps and their boundaries if you've ever look at those. In some instances, the boundaries often overlap.
In the greater West Palm Beach area, the MLS's are as follows:
- Regional MLS (greater Palm Beach county)
- Martin County MLS (greater Martin county)
- Palm Beach MLS (Palm Beach Island only, darling)
- South East Florida MLS (greater Ft Lauderdale & Broward county)
In our ultra-tech world, the general public wants, and in some cases, demands free information. Afterall, the public can get music, movies, TV shows, photos and all sorts of digital information for free (despite its legality). So it seems kinda odd when you tell an average person that "yes, there is a web site that has all the properties for sale in the area" and "no, you can't have access to it, I have to look for you."
All of this is done with good intentions to protect properties in Palm Beach County area and the information that's contained during the course of a transaction. Areas across the country handle this differently. For example, in the Houston area, the MLS web site (www.har.com) is freely accessible by the general public and only the transaction details are hidden (transaction details are items such as how to access the property, the percentage of commission, etc). In other areas, such as in the Seattle area, the MLS web site (www.nwmls.com) is completely closed, forcing anyone wishing to search for properties to go through a licensed real estate company.
Most MLS's have adopted a common trend to allow the general public to access information if it is marked as public by the real estate company who listed it. This usually results in two sites for the MLS; one private -only accessible by it's members. One public -accessible by everyone. So from our list above, the public sites are below:
- Regional MLS: www.home2florida.com
- Martin County MLS: none
- Palm Beach MLS: none
- South East Florida MLS: none
As you can see from the list above, not all MLS's have public sites.
Marking a property as public has further consequences. The property becomes fair game for the following to display the property on their own sites respectively as long as they give credit to the original real estate company:
- other real estate companies.
- the state association (in this case, FAR or the Florida Association of Realtors - www.fl.living.net).
- the national association (always, NAR or the National Association of Realtors - www.realtor.com).
All of this happens as an automatic process so it requires nothing more than the agent to mark the property as public in the private MLS and the property automatically shows on the other two sites.
National Aggregate Real Estate Web Sites
National Aggregate Real Estates are sites like Realtor.com, Trulia.com, Zillow.com. These web sites all follow the same business model. They aquire real estate properties for sale from around the country and build a single real estate web site around them, then sell advertising on the site to both brokers and agents as well as other companies. How they acquire properties is the differating factor.
As you notice from above, Realtor.com is the national association that automatically receives property information from all local MLS real estate web sites across the country when the property becomes public. Consequently, Realtor.com has a the most properties available and the most visitors. Other companies cannot get the same information either by paying or by using technology magic. Some consider this inside track to receive public property information a monopoly. Even the US Department of Justice performed a two-year investigation before settling with NAR.
All other aggregate real estate such as Zillow.com and Trulia.com acquire their properties directly from the real estate companies. Since it is left up to the real estate companies to send the properties to these aggregate sites, usually only the larger real estate companies do so directly as they are the companies with the resources to do so (think full-time technical staff). Typically, smaller real estate companies have difficulty in having this done automatically without the assistance of an outside company.
So in recap of National Aggregate Real Estate Web Sites, the information flows as follows:
-Local Real Estate Company -> Local MLS -> State Association (FAR) -> National Association (NAR, aka realtor.com)
-Local Real Estate Company -> Local MLS -> Local Real Estate Company -> National Aggregate Real Estate Web Site (ie Zillow.com, Trulia.com, etc)
Regional Broker Real Estate Web Sites
Regional Broker Real Estate Web Sites acquire properties either directly from their agents or from the local MLS. If the local MLS is unhelpful (which sometimes they are) the Regional Broker Real Estate company will work upstream to the State Association (FAR) or through an authorized third party.
Regional Broker Real Estate Web Sites differ because they specialize in a regional area. For smaller companies, their territory is going to remain inside the boundaries of a local MLS (within a Palm Beach County) but for larger companies the territory is going to spread across multiple MLS territories (Martin County, Palm Beach County, Broward County, etc).
This provides a unique challenge for Regional Broker Real Estate Web Sites because they now have to work out with each individual MLS how they are going to receive information and try to combine that information into a seamless web site for the general public. Since each MLS is independent of each other there is no uniform process for real estate companies to work with although there is a push for this to happen.
These sites tend to lack the luster of National Aggregate Web Sites as most Regional Real Estate Companies do not have the resources to built the same items that a 70 million investment can built like it did for Zillow.com.
At the same time, these sites actually have the most potential. Why? Because real estate properties as a subject is a local community issue. What's true in South Florida has no impact on what's happening in say, Austin, TX. So the single Regional Broker Real Estate Web Site can focus on one common item, the local area's real estate properties. In addition, when someone is looking to move into greater West Palm Beach, they only consider that area and not greater West Palm Beach or greater Orlando, usually (although I did met a rocket scientist for NASA one time that travelled around the country and could live anywhere he wanted).
These web sites also differ from National Aggregate Web Sites because the goals of a Regional Real Estate Web Site is to ultimately perform a transaction through that company whereas the goals of a National Aggregate Web Site is to ultimately sell advertising. Consequently, depending on the Regional Real Estate company, the web site may lock up the information forcing you to register with an account that will lead to nagging emails and phone calls. This results in false information running rampant since some web searchers are unwilling to trade their true information and forcing the Regional Real Estate company having to "scrub" the leads.
Agent Real Estate Web Sites
Agent Real Estate Web Sites focus solely on the real estate agent. Most agents are going to have some type of identity of who they are and what they do. This is usually around a geographic area such as a particular community.
Basic Agent Real Estate Web Sites are going to allow the agent to manually input their properties themselves, adding and removing properties as she sees fit. This sometimes results in duplication of input; once for the local MLS and once for their personal real estate web site. In my experience, this leads to incorrect property information on their real estate web site over time. In general, single agent is too busy to maintain accurate information and in some cases the agent abandons the site for long periods of time resulting in blogs, articles and property information being six months old or older alienating web site visitors.
To simplify the process of getting property information, agents usually get the information through an automatic process called IDX (hence our company name, RegionalIDX, public IDX information from the Regional MLS). IDX is usually a predetermined product built based on the public information from the local MLS or the state level FAR association. It looks terrible, it's the same on every site and it doesn't integrate into the agent's Real Estate Web Site but rather is "framed" onto the site.
Because agents are trying to save budget dollars in most cases they tend to purchase lousy template web sites. These web sites tend to be a dime a dozen, produced by far away companies to sell what amounts to be a small bottle of snake oil and it shows. With terrible template layouts, common stream of senseless rote information and inaccurate property information, the sites if they ceased to exist would make the world a better place.
In some cases, the agent has a budget to spend to create a semi-custom or in rare cases a full custom real estate web site and employs a company like ours. This allows for customized property information that is automatic, true property integration into the site and allows for creative freedom. Pretty nifty.
Single Property Real Estate Web Sites
Single Property Real Estate Web Sites focus solely on one individual property. These sites are usually reserved for higher end properties. I don't see these much but could imagine that many sellers would want to have them if it were easily possible. These are usually some form of an online brochure.
Summary
Hopefully the above information was helpful to anyone looking or searching for property in the South Florida area. With so many sites, it's really difficult to know where to look or if the information is accurate.
Studies show that most buyers are going to look for property information on National Aggregate Real Estate Web Sites for around 9 to 13 months. After this time, they are going to give up, simply because there's too much information to handle and try to find a real estate agent. Studies also show that more often than not that the buyer will do business with the first real estate agent they talk to.
Again, the sites are categorized as follows:
- Local MLS Private Real Estate Web Sites
- National Aggregate Real Estate Web Sites
- Regional Broker Real Estate Web Sites
- Agent Real Estate Web Sites
- Single Property Real Estate Web Sites
So go! You now are armed with the information you need to search throughout the Internet. Start with the National Aggregate Real Estate Web Sites like Realtor.com, then move to the Local MLS Public Real Estate Web Sites like www.home2florida.com, then move onto a Regional Broker Real Estate Web Site (I'll leave the choice up to you) and finally check out an Agent Real Estate Web Sites like the live demos we have listed here.
My suggestion is to find an real estate agent that you know, like and trust and use that person as a guide. There are certainly enough traps, tricks and snafus that it's well worth it. Also, using an agent doesn't cost you anything and skirting around an agent doesn't save you any money.