miOaklandCounty.com

Realtor.com is OK, but there are much better sources for finding information about homes for sale these days. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a Realtor, and Realtor.com is an asset of the National Association of Realtors.

The problems with Realtor.com is that the descriptions are often lacking and the data is old. It takes a couple of days for listings to show up on Realtor.com. If you are looking in a particularly ‘hot’ market, and relying on Realtor.com, you will miss your dream house.

As for the lame descriptions, Realtor.com passes through very little information about a home unless the agent is a paid subscriber and updates his/her listings manually. It seems that the majority of agents don’t enhance their listings, and the public is getting a very limited picture of what these houses are really like.

So, what are the sources? Of course, my first suggestion is to check with a Realtor. I, for example, email new listings to my clients every day with homes that fit their search criteria. I would imagine that most Realtors are capable of doing that.

Second, many Realtors maintain web sites with full search capabilities on them. A simple google search should lead you to lots of sites.

Third, many MLS’s maintain public sites. These are really great tools, because you get longer descriptions than you do on Realtor.com. In my are, for example, www.moveinmichigan.com, is a great public site. For mls public sites across the US, try http://publiclistings.realtown.com

So, yes, Realtor.com is convenient, but I think you can do better very easily. And since you are most likely making one of the largest purchases in your life, don’t you want more information, not less?

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Written by Maureen Francis

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