I'd be more interested in what the listings of an agent look like on MLS that what their website looks like. I suspect many don't have a separate website and I doubt most folks look at a particular agent's or broker's listings unless they are looking for a particular property. If you are looking to buy, you want to see all that is available regardless of who has the listing.

As bry911 indicated, it may vary. In my area, the greater Houston realtors (HAR) have had a website with the MLS listings in this area for at least 17-18 years. That's the place I go to look, whether for curiosity or serious interest.

A realtors overall online presence is VERY important IMO.

someone's online presence is indicative of their marketing abilities, their knowledge or experience - While I understand your point, I just don't know that I agree. A great marketing plan involves generating awareness and interest. A company website would be the last place those two things are generated. Given the choice between a realtor spending money on a website or spending the extra money on better photos...I would take the realtor who spends the money on better photos and other advertising every time. If the realty company has a great website then great, but even Berkshire Hathaway's website (which I just looked at) is fairly pedestrian and not even close to as useful as the local MLS, and now that I have seen it, I don't anticipate using it again.

Good photos cost next to nothing to get done.. I wouldn't be worried about that from a realtor when this is one of the easiest aspects of any sale of a home. One realtors site I checked out a few months back looked like a free geocities website from the 90's. When I saw that I immediately knew not to bother with that realtor. It's part of his branding that was so poorly done that It left me questioning what else they'll be lazy at. A realtor should skip some branding if they can't fully commit to things. After all first impressions are important and a lot of times that's what they'll see online.

When I was looking for an agent to show me houses, I looked at agency websites. An agency with a good website will be able to keep you updated. I want the photos to be great and view able so my time is not wasted. If I see a house's photos and the bathroom is not shown, I assume the bathroom is old and a negative. The agency's website gives you info about their agents. How experienced and successful. Do they have a lot of listing? What price range appears frequently. One agency I looked at shows all their listings and solds for 3 years.

Bry, what are you referring to as the "MLS"?

The MLS can only be accessed by agent members. Everything the public sees is a third party vendor site, which are fed by an Internet Data Exchange agreements. Because of this, these third party sites are not completely accurate nor timely. (Zillow for instance)

nc, do you consider Realtor.com a third party site, therefore inaccurate and untimely?

In all the areas I have lived in since returning to the U.S. the association of realtors allows public access to the MLS. I know many areas do the same thing, and since the OP noted that they had access to the MLS, I am assuming that it is maintained by the board of realtors. Realtors do have access to tools that the public doesn't on most of these, but having more experience with realtors than any reasonable person should, I can assure you that it is, in fact, the very same site they use.

ncrealestateguy

The MLS has made it's data available to the public for at least the last 7 years here in Wisconsin (see http://wihomes.com/). I would think that would make the information pretty reliable.

Where we live now and where we last sold a house, the MLS is not assessable by the public. So, you end up using a third party like realtor.com, which takes a few days to post the listings.

i live north of albany, ny (clifton park) and am honestly shocked that $465 is what a realtor thinks is reasonable. i would have guessed that anything in the region south of albany would be much higher! we occasionally drive to poughkepsie to get the commuter rail into nyc and see so many people going in for work.

that area is so pretty and so close to nyc without being too crowded.

your house looks lovely, btw. hope all goes well for you.

I have never, ever heard of an MLS feed being available to the general public anywhere in the US however the IDX (Internet Data Exchange) feed is available as ncrealestateguy stated...some may call this feed the MLS but it is not.

Our Board of Realtors (and many others) does not allow a search button on a members website to say "Search The MLS"...we can have "Search For Homes" or different variations of that as a button name. The reason it can't say "Search The MLS" is because that would be a false statement...you are "Searching The IDX".

We had 3 realtors. The 3rd one comped it to a farmhouse build in 1770 with the same square footage. It has a barn and riding rink. It is on the market for $397,000. This makes no sense. She valued the house at $430 and said to list it at $465

The other 2 had similar numbers to each other. We are going with the realtor who had comps that made sense and appeared to be aggressive. Her web site is the best of all. Her numbers were valued at $449 to $469. We are going to list at $479, which is $30,000 higher than her lowest and $10,000 more than her highest. She said if she removed her lowest comp from the equation, her high would have been $479. We will see what happens.

To list at top price you need to have a new roof. As a buyer I would expect there to be a new roof.

While your home does seem a bit big for a couple, I also get a sense you don't really want to move. I work in financial and retirement planning. We tell clients who are thinking about a retirement destination to RENT there first on a short term basis before making a big move that could have financial consequences. Your house is absolutely gorgeous BTW!

We are getting estimates for a new roof. It will take a few days.

I so agree with Chisue. Now doesn't seem to be the best timing. I know you don't have to think about kids starting school, but holidays are around the corner.

Can you look at peak times for sales in your area?

i wouldn't want your listing to go stale.

All this being said, I did mention in my earlier thread about a financial planner. Maybe dulcie can give you insights about ways to be able to stay.

The mls is normally only available to agents. There are feeds onto 3rd party websites that put much of the info the mls has onto it's own website (like Zillow, realtor.com, trulia), but what agents see has that info plus confidential info not available on the other sites. Some of the 3rd party sites do not update, so the listings may have already been sold a year ago, yet still show active (Zillow and trulia are pretty bad about that)

As a REALTOR myself, I never use square footage pricing ever. What really counts is the actual market value based on homes comparable to yours in terms of the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage of the home (not price per square foot), and use only comparables that sold. Only homes sold indicate true market value. Not actives or expireds.

That being said, the REALTOR that evaluated your home was correct in his approach. The advice the agent gave you on the roof is also correct. However read further to know what other options are available to you when dealing with the issue of the roof.

You also indicated that you live in the woods. If I were evaluating your home, I would look at homes in your area similar to yours. If none were available for comparison, than I would use homes in the areas immediately adjacent to where you live. And of course, there are times when you must look for homes further out. Generally speaking, what you are trying to do, or the agent is trying to do, is get a line on what the market is willing to pay for home like yours right now, not last year, or in the future. I should mention also that comparables that are not older than three months are important. Any solds older than this time period is irrelevant.

As for the roof which you mentioned, it is actually in your best interest to replace the roof and if not, then provide an allowance as an incentive for the prospective buyer that may be interested in your home but has reservations about the roof. Quite often, when I work with buyers who find a home with a roofing problem, I often try to negotiate a reduction in price, or try to get the seller to offer a cash incentive to the buyer to have the roof done themselves.

As for the bathroom and kitchen. These two rooms are very desirable to buyers and in fact sellers who have renovated these two rooms can often get a return on investment that is much higher than if they did any other renovation. A kitchen renovation can have a return on investment of 82.7%. As for a bathroom, it can be between 65-120 per cent. No other renovation is relevant. Buyers at the end of the day don't really care what you spent on renovations but the desirability factor remains high on the two above mentioned rooms.

Hope this helps you!

I'm trying to figure out why it is important to me to have the MLS access available to only member agents. I understand online sites do not have this information, but they show list price, DOM, Solds, sq ft, lot size, price reduction, etc and lots of pics, also many show the floor plan. I usually get an aerial view and a street view, enough for me to see if it should be a consideration or not.

I know on this forum, agents will tell me I need an agent to know important information, I agree if I'm interested I need to call an agent to view the property and make an offer. I also know many RE sites are current, they do not show sold or delisted properties.

Tell me in simple terms why I need an agent to give me more information than I already have online.

As a buyer I do liook at sq ft pricing, I know other factors are important, but when I see comparable houses (same sq ft, lot, yr built, BDR/BA) with huge difference in price per sq ft, I see a problem.

@cmarlin20, Linda said it very well, and I agree. Recently we listed our fishing cabin, and told the realtor that it was to be sold furnished. I was puzzled when that fact didn't show front and center on the realtor.com site. She said that realtors knew about it, but not the general public. So some things are kept confidential.

If you had an agent who had access to the MLS then you would know the cabin was being sold furnished, but if you shop online by yourself, you would never have known.

Exactly WHAT information is not available on sites like Zillow? Amount of mortgage held by homeowner and status of payments/non-payments? Back taxes owed? Pending divorce? Permitted/non-permitted renovations? Offers made, accepted, fallen through, declined? House is haunted? LOL

Hi cmarlin20,

To answer your question, first I need to mention that working with a buyer agent means that their service is free. You don't pay a commission to an agent when you are a buyer. Only the seller pays a commission to his listing agent when the house sells and in turn, the listing agent sends a percentage of the total commission to the buyers agent. So, it doesn't cost you anything to have an agent represent you. Wouldn't you rather have your interests protected rather than risk going it alone?

Second, agents have access to information not available to the general public such as property history, (which shows how often the home sold and for how much and whether or not there were any times when the home did not sell), detailed property surveys, who is occupying the property (which is important to know if the owner is actually renting the property to tenants rather than living in the residency themselves), possession date, any special notations about the property such as when viewing is possible and under what conditions, the actual listing date (which is important to know when negotiating) as well as zoning information.

All of the above information mentioned is important if you decide to put an offer on a property. Your agent can have a complete picture of the property and help advise you and negotiate for you to protect your interests.

If you want some really good information on why working with an agent makes sense, then click this link → http://www.realtor.com/advice/buyer-agents-work-free/ to learn more.

Take care!

I understand the seller pays commission, but I don't assume a buyers agent is free to me, as a buyer I'm indirectly paying that commission. I can also have the listing agent represent me in a dual agency agreement. Many times I can get more direct information for the listing agent than I would with a middleman.

I usually can obtain property history online, I've also found the owner name, googled it to see the owner died a few months ago, yes, many times an agent will get me this faster. I also know many buyer's agent's don't know details about the seller that the listing agent should not divulge to another agent. I've also gotten more information about the other party than I should from agents.

I've already said I have no regard for zillow, don't rely on it for information. I know redfin is not available everywhere but I find much information there, if I'm interested in a property, I google the address and see other sites (some RE, some not) with more information. The listing date is readily available, as is previous listings and pics, one interesting one I found added 600 sq ft to the new listing. Zoning information is available online., I just researched that on a possible spec build.

I respect an agents work when I actually am ready to buy, but I don't see the private information as valuable as many agents want to make it appear.

I understand the seller pays commission, but I don't assume a buyers agent is free to me, as a buyer I'm indirectly paying that commission. +1

Our area has a site ran by the ______ Association of Realtors. The website is also the website for the association of realtors, is the same site that they use to portal to the MLS (the portal may take them somewhere else). The information on the site is updated every 15 minutes, and matches all of the publicly provided information on the MLS. Previous sales are not shown, nor are realtor comments, nor commissions offered, and several search functions are disabled. However, that is the site that everyone in our area searches when looking for a home. Any realtor who doesn't list information needed by the public in the public section is handicapping themselves, I was told that almost all sales in our area are influenced by the site, with most originating there.

We have had similar sites in all three cities I have lived in since coming back to the U.S. I was amazed after this thread had me look at other areas and find they didn't have similar sites. They are so incredible, I am not sure how other communities function without them. It was that idea, that the entire city uses the same site to search for homes, that led me to question the usefulness of a realtor's web page. I honestly didn't realize how different much of the country was.

“Recently
we listed our fishing cabin, and told the realtor that it was to be sold
furnished. I was puzzled when that fact didn't show front and center on the
realtor.com site. She said that realtors knew about it, but not the general
public. So some things are kept confidential”.

Why realtors want to keep this information confidential? What is the benefit to the seller by withholding the information from the general public?

The only thing I can think of is "Old Boy's Network." They keep secrets so you HAVE to use them to get the real info?

Hey, I'm just thrilled the cabin sold. We took $1000 off the agreed on price so they can fix the items the inspection found to their satisfaction. All signed and happy. Should close end of September! Woo Hoo!

Hello Suzi, Congratulations for getting the cabin sold. What a great news!

Not nice if the reason of withholding information is as you stated. ;-(

I agree, azmom. And I am sure that it IS the reason.

(Not shouting - just bolding.)

Sixty......as far as the price of your house goes, I have heard that if you want to sell a house more quickly to price it 1-2% below the comps, unless of course it's a seller's market and there are bidding wars on every house that hits the market. Good luck with everything!

But how would a prospect know they don't have all the information? A buyer would still need to call an agent to view the property wouldn't they?

Joanie-the problem is there are no real comps, just square feet, acres, and condition. I don't fully understand what the realtor did. She found 10 houses that sold, that had similar square feet and were contemporaries or kind of. Then she adjusted each ones sale price to add or subtract for features to match mine. For example, if the other house had one more bedroom, she took $10,000 off. If they were in excellent condition and had all the upgrades that we have, she gave them $20,000. At the end the houses had adjusted prices so their features matched mine. Some of the comps lost a few thousand from their actual selling price and a few gained a bit. Then she averaged the new adjusted prices and came up with a range for ours.

Of course none of this takes into account personal taste or any other desires. I have entered crazy land.

That's about how it goes unless you live in cookie cutter land. None off it accounts for teh to die for house and uniqueness is very hard to factor in. The two agents were pretty close, so I think you are in the right zone. Pricing isn't an exact science -- it is a balancing of comps and best guesses, how it will appraise for financing and getting the most interest and activity. You might want to consider whether folks might be searching for listings up to $47I5K and miss you at $479k.

“Recently we listed our fishing cabin, and told the realtor that it was to be sold furnished. I was puzzled when that fact didn't show front and center on the realtor.com site. She said that realtors knew about it, but not the general public. So some things are kept confidential”.

There are several reasons that furnished is not displayed "front and center" in the public remarks and I can only speak from lots of experience in my area but....inclusive furniture is personal property and many lenders or loans originating in our area will not include this as a value in the loan amount. In other words....if you are purchasing a furnished home for 100k with 20% down the lender might say there is 5k worth of furniture/personal property conveying in the sale and will loan 80% of 95k which means that Buyers have to bring more money to the closing. Some lenders will demand an amendment stating furniture/personal property is not included in the sale price if furnished is displayed "front and center".

Of course the real reason is probably just the "Old Boys Network"......

Summer,

If you hang around here long enough, you will become accustom to certain people calling us agents greedy, over paid, self interested, sneaky, lacking morals, untrained, blacklisters and crooked.

Thanks for posting the true reason why the sell of personal items was not included in the MLS remarks.

ncrealestateguy....I can take it as I have been married for 25 years :)

Zillow may be slow to post changes, and they fail the test from "The Music Man". (The traveling salesmen singing, "You Gotta Know the Territory".) They can't differentiate neighborhoods well, or factor in lot sizes.

However, in my area (near Chicago), Zillow has a lot of public data -- taxes, dates the property last sold and selling price, dates the property was listed/removed/relisted -- with pricing. They can bring up 'comps' -- for sale and sold -- including comparing the comps' square footage, more or fewer BR's, baths, and lot size. They provide stats on a municipality's climbing or declining sales/sale prices. They list overall percentage of asking price achieved at sale within a municipality. (Something the OP here should consider.)

So...again...what other information is only privy to the MLS? Mortgage balances and standing? Taxes up to date or in arrears? (I know I could find tax info independent of Zillow.) If my market isn't hot, hot, hot, Zillow is pretty comprehensive -- just not FAST.

This is an honest question:

Why not add a notation on the MLS such as " Fully furnished, Furniture is available but not included in the asking price" If it is what Suzi ( seller) intended? If it is included in the price you would still need to clarify it. Some buyers would view the place is already being finished as a plus, withholding it is reducing the selling point.

Just chiming in to say we just bought a house with some of the furnishings included, which were listed in a notes section of the mls that only realtors could see. The reason for this being what Summersatthelake stated. All involved were very careful to keep personal property completely separate from the house transaction. We ended up buying a few more pieces from the sellers with a verbal agreement and check at closing.

chisue.....There really is no "standard" as to what information is in the MLS but not displayed in the IDX feed. Each Board of Realtors usually has an MLS committee who decides what is public information and what is not. Our MLS information allows members to search back almost 15 years.

We got a little off topic here, but it's good to have professionals come in and explain these things for future reference.

I wonder what the OP has decided.

artemis_ma - I don't know who your friends are that use a/c for 9 months out of the year here in the Tampa Bay area, because I don't know anybody that meets that description at least over here on the St Pete side (again, the prevailing breeze across the peninsula from the Gulf). I turn on my a/c in June, or maybe May if we get an early summer (El Nino), and it will be off by the end of the month. But someone is almost always home to have windows and patio doors open. I do have neighbors that are gone all day and the house shut tight, so they presumably keep their a/c on for a longer season.

Re confidential info- realtors have a word limit in the public remarks section. So there isn't enough room sometimes to fit everything in. Plus, the confidential remarks section often has lockbox codes if it isn't on a sentrilock lockbox, or comments like, "No showings between 2-5 due to kids being home alone".

The furniture being also for sale is appropriate to put in confidential remarks, since it wasn't included in the asking price.

Re cash offers- Most people will accept a lower cash offer than a financed offer, since financing can easily fall thru. Plus you don't have to worry about it appraising to get a loan.

The new roof will be done tomorrow. It looks really good. There will be no complaints. I bought 65 boxes from Uline. I'm going to start packing away lots of little distracting things so the focus is on the house. Buyers don't need to see how gorgeous my family is since they don't come with the house. I do have one I'd like to pass on with the house, but that's a whole other story.

sixtyohno, you crack me up! Happy the roof looks good and things are progressing!

I strongly, strongly recommend Sarasota. We have more live theaters than we can count, the opera house, the ballet, a concert venue, the Sarasota orchestra, an art museum with Rubens and other notable artwork, tons of galleries, many many parks and bird sanctuaries, very fine dining that equals what you'd find in NYC, an excellent hospital, a world renowned aquarium, Marie Selby gardens, and lots of opportunities for those who like to volunteer. And while the county is red, the city is blue. Oh I almost forgot we have the beach that was voted best beach in the country. The sand is like talcum powder and even in summer is cool to the touch.

c9pilot, considering the temps hit the upper 80's and low 90's with 80-100% humidity the beginning of May and continue to the end of September in the Tampa/St Pete/Sarasota area, I find it a bit unusual that you would prefer to keep the windows and doors open. Personally, I prefer not sweating all day long and most of my neighbors would feel the same as me. Gulf breezes or not.

However, the rest of the year, has low humidity and delightful temperatures.

Sityohno - your house is lovely. I love the tall ceilings and all the light! I hope you sell it soon.

suziakadesertdance- maybe the realtor was holding the info about the furniture back in case it could be used as a negotiating tool?