The Multitude of Websites When Searching For a Home...Oh My!

I try to keep up with the plethora of Real Estate websites that buyers can search for not only Tampa homes but all over the United States and beyond. Knowing what buyers like and how they search is the key to giving them what they want—homes to buy. I am amazed at the difficulty and tedium of many sites and wonder why they are even visited. It takes forever for many sites to bring up homes I am requesting; others like Yahoo Real Estate are incomplete and favor certain listings.

Why would anyone use a search engine to find homes unless it was 1) fast to download, 2) listed all the homes available, 3) allowed me to detail my specific search and 4) didn’t make me sign up with any specific agent? If I, as a Realtor, get frustrated by testing the multitude of Real Estate sites out there, surely, novice searchers and first time home buyers have got to become frustrated. Personally, I find Realtor.com the easiest and most complete to navigate. Then Craig’s list is one of the most popular sites to search and it like Backpage.com doesn’t allow you to narrow your searches like Realtor.com and doesn’t offer pictures on your front page searches. This doesn’t make sense to me because all this extra searching takes more time, more clicking and I thought the internet was all about saving time?   Some of my other pet peeves in trying to find a specific type of home are:

1. Sites that give you huge price spans; $50,000 to $250,000---this leaves way too many homes to view
2. Sites that require you to re-submit your home listings every 14 days
3. Sites that use Monopoly® pieces on their map that clutters and confuse.
4. Site that is tricky to find where to remove listings, edit or email etc.
5. Having to press Ctl; Alt; Delete because I am tired of watching the hour glass spin waiting for the page to load

Now that I am a Realtor, I understand why all of this could be eliminated if buyers would just register with a Realtor of their choosing and all the current homes would come to them---straight to their inbox everyday. Imagine that, not having to do your own searching? Understanding that is too much of a commitment at first for many people and not sure which Realtor to trust, along with a host of other reasons; having the internet to search homes has been a godsend for everyone. And then, buyers change their criteria many times without notifying their Realtor and want to look for homes outside of it. Listing Book® now allows buyers to change their search criteria at will.  That’s a good thing. Having IDX on my and other Realtor sites also avoids a lot of this unnecessary jumping from site to site to search for homes. I guess the options are out there for all types and stages of the process.

And if you are ready to have a Realtor like me set you up on a search of homes that will meet your criteria and come to your email doorstep everyday as soon as they come new on the market, then call or email me and I would love to work with you to help you find a home.