We recently implemented a few improvements to our online home search feature — you can now search for condo open houses and sold property listings. In addition, the options for searching short sales or by school district have been refined.
Open Houses
Listings with a scheduled open house will automatically display with a blue open house ribbon in the list view. Plus, upcoming open house information will be listed at the top of the property details page.
A new Open House search panel lets you search specifically for upcoming open houses.
Sold Property Listings
You now have the option to search for sold property listings using the “Property Status” search panel. Check the “Sold” option box and run your search.
When viewing the details of a particular property listing a new tab displays called “Similar & Sold” showing similar listings for available for sale or that have sold. It’s a great tool to compare properties.
Short Sales (pre-foreclosure) & Bank-owned Properties
By default, search results display all available MLS listed condos for sale including short sales and bank-owned properties. With this update, you now have the ability to exclude short sales and bank-owned listings from the search results allowing to you focus solely on non-distressed properties. Conversely, you have the option to search specifically for short sale and bank-owned properties.
Information about school search options can be found on our Living Northwest blog.
May 23rd, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Great Real Estate search refinement options! It seems that more and more clients want something very specific and this is a great tool to help those clients truly find the home of their dreams. Good work!
May 26th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Great improvements, Ben. For potential buyers to be able to search for sold properties really empowers with more information on which to make their purchasing decision. Kudos.
May 27th, 2011 at 11:05 am
A suggested upgrade for next time would be to include an easy way to see which buildings are FHA approved.
May 27th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll pass it on to the developers. It would definitely help with the search process.
May 28th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Hi Ben,
I popped over just to see your blog and see what neat things you were doing here. This search feature, which includes sold properties, is really wonderful. I played with it a bit and imagine that home buyers & sellers in Seattle will find it immensely valuable. Good job!
Mary
June 12th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Good search enhancements. Are you familiar with VOW data feeds? VOW feeds provide your clients with even more search options such as days on market, original list price and price change history. Check my website out as I have these options. They require registration to view and I have increased client logins by over 100%. Good article and great new tools on your IDX search.
June 15th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Grant – thanks for stopping by. Yes, we have similar search options as well.