Searching for Listings Around The Web – What You Don’t See

Posted by Jim Kimmons, Broker/Owner • April 13, 2009 • Printer-friendly

: Image by jimkimmons via Flickr

I'm guilty of assuming that all who frequent this website, and especially those who return to the Taos real estate listing search pages, are aware that they are searching all listings that are in our MLS. At least they're all that the member brokers have agreed to have displayed in the searches on other broker member sites. It's rare that a broker doesn't allow all of their listings to be displayed on these IDX (Internet Data Exchange) search pages.

A great post on this Phoenix Realtor's site talks about searching on the major national listing sites versus the search pages on an individual broker's local site. It's true that these larger sites, with millions of dollars to invest, have some pretty slick interfaces. It's fun to use some of their fancy tools in searching for a home or land in the Taos real estate market.

Though the numbers would be different for Taos, I think that we can assume they're going to be in the ballpark with the results he published:

If you search on Trulia for Taos area homes, you would be likely NOT TO SEE 218 homes and 390 land listings.
Doing the same on Zillow, you WOULDN'T see 115 homes and 140 land listings.
And, surprisingly, Realtor.com, a site that's supposed to get all of our local listings automatically, shows a 6% deficit in his area, which would mean you would NOT see 53 homes and 65 land listings.

Actually, I did a quick check just of Zillow for the Town of Taos, and it was much worse than the Phoenix result, showing fewer than 62% of the listing count in our MLS current IDX search.

So, by all means enjoy their slick displays and tools. But, if you want to see all of the homes and land listings in the Taos real estate market, come to this site, or at least that of a local Taos real estate broker.