Internet Searches for Homes for Sale

The Internet is the ultimate source for information, right? Well, not if you heed the warnings. Whether you get your news, history or political information online, Internet experts all caution that the volume of information does not equate with quality, and searching for homes for sale online is no exception.

Useful though it may be, the Internet super highway just provides another street for buyers to cruise down, and some are dead end streets. I make contact with at least one buyer each week who found a property listed on Zillow, Trulia or some other popular Internet search site—and discovered that the property was sold, expired or withdrawn from the MLS. From time to time, I have also had to tell buyers that the home they found on realtor.com was no longer available.

The reasons that the information is out of date is simple. MLS listings are syndicated to these various Web sites, or they are IDX feeds and each is updated only periodically. Even the San Antonio board of REALTORS^® MLS Search is not updated in real time. It's updated only every three days, and the current status of listings that are new or have expired will not show in the search results.

There is however one online search for consumers that has real-time access to the most current information in the San Antonio MLS. That would of course be the search available to member agents. Our search also includes over 160 parameters for the search, which can whittle down that list of 60+ properties that may turn up in another search by finding only the properties that have precisely the features a buyer wants.

Internet searches give consumers a false sense of empowerment, and real time results is only one of the advantages of having an agent who is working to meet your wants and needs. In addition to freeing up the time spent searching on your own, not seeing those properties that went on the market two or more days ago, and following up on those that are no longer available, there is another advantage you may not have considered. When you contact the listing agent for a property, that agent represents the seller. Agents in states that allow buyer representation will be working for you, and representing you in the negotiations, not the seller.

Not only is a buyer's representative the best source for real time information, but also for other information that a seller's agent cannot provide. Critical information, like days on the market, an opinion of value, a negotiating strategy and insights to a seller's vulnerabilities that only an agent is likely to be aware of is available only through your buyer's agent.