Many people have commented on this blog that they don’t like the new Realtor.ca MLS search. The Canadian Real Estate Association is working to solve all the problems with the new MLS search, in the meantime I’d like to suggest a different way of searching the MLS…
We’ve started a web site specifically for Edmonton home buyers – www.FindMyEdmontonHome.com – that is seriously under construction, but the MLS search is working. We have a map based Edmonton MLS search here we’d love you to try. The bugs that I’ve found so far have been worked out (almost), but something tells me no one would be better to try it out than our blog readers – you guys clearly can find the bugs!
There are advantages to searching the local MLS database instead of the national one – it’s updated every 15 minutes instead of every day, and you can find some information here that you won’t find on the MLS (like taxes and condo fees etc). There is an easy save your search feature that will email you new listings that match your search daily. Plus, if you save your search you get access to info like days on market and some market statistics whenver you want to check them out.
I hope you’ll give it a try, I hope you’ll like it, and I hope you’ll let us know your feedback!
Sheldon and Sara,
Your new searching tool is much better than the realtor.ca one. And I actually like the new realtor site, if only you could train the lesser agents to fillout and address and postal code correctly it would work as intended. I would add a feature for when you run the comparibles, that would actually pull them comparibles up in a window somewhere so you can tell where and what they are.
Cheers
thanks!
thanks!
Congratulation on the new search site. I find it much more intuitive, easy and fun to use than realtor.ca.
The only “problem” I have with it is when you click to see more pictures of the houses. To get out of the picture viewing interface, you have to click an area on the left, which is not very intuitive and incoherent with the rest of the site where you can either click an “x” in the top right corner or press Esc to get back to the main interface.
But other than that, kudos to you!
Just signed up to be a VIP. The additional market information is definitely worth using this site over the other one.
Knowing the median price, as well as the lowest/highest asking prices and days on market for a specific neighborhood is really helpful!
For a quick comparison of the map feature, I zoomed in on Larkspur, both on your site, and on the realtor.ca site. Yours seems to be more accurate in the placement of the properties, although it’s missing 2 listings that probably should show up in Larkspur: E3169223 and E3160778.
The realtor.ca site shows several dots in Larkspur that really belong to the other side of 34 St… Is your site based on postal codes? Or is your mapping software more accurate?
Closing the listings in 2 steps after looking at additional pictures is a bit cumbersome and potentially confusing since one gets the impression, on the left, that something is still loading.
The days on market pie chart could be easier to read at a glance if you used different shades of green, yellow, and red, to reflect how long the various slices have been on the market. Dark green = shortest time -> dark red=longest time.
I like the many advanced search options, and also the quick links in the bottom left, to get to a listing description and its spot on the map.
Selecting Style=”Detached” seems to show only a subset of properties in a selected neighborhood. Also selecting “2 or more Stories” and “Bungalow” adds a lot more listings.
Either, “Detached” is not a superset of detached housing styles, or it is not specified for each bungalow and 2-story house.
Just thought I pass that on.
Is there a possibility to add a filter to select only properties that have a “view” (lake, ravine, river)?
Although I am signed in as a VIP, I only see “Average days on market” for a range of properties, at the bottom of the page.
On the Summary tab of the pop-up for individual listings, I see “Days on Market: VIP only”. When I click on “VIP only”, nothing significant happens.
What am I doing wrong?
Wow! Thanks so much for all the feedback! I have forwarded it all to developers.
MDM – you’re not doing anything wrong, I am gettin the same result. I’ll also report this to them.
thanks!
nice tool!
Thanks so much for commissioning this improved search site. You do get more information for less frustration than with the Realtor site.
I saved my search. However when retrieve ‘your saved search’ it returns the correct parameters, but now shows the map with no listings found. Have to search again from scratch. Also how do you add a property to ‘My favorite listings’?
Cheers.