You can search what many refer to as the “Sequim MLS” using many different websites, but which MLS website has the best features and is easy to navigate? How can a buyer know which MLS site will work best for them? I’ll answer that question for buyers today.
First, I’ll clarify what a “Sequim MLS” is and make sure we’re all on the same sheet of music, and then I’ll explain which MLS services are locally available and how those services are syndicated to national web sites that buyers can use to search for their Sequim home.
Having access to a public real estate listing site that includes data from an MLS does not give the public access to all of the subscription services of an MLS that only real estate brokers will have as subscribers.
When people use the label “Sequim MLS,” they’re not referring to a specific multiple listing service, because there’s no such service called the “Sequim MLS.” There are two local multiple listing services that serve the Sequim area. One is the smaller and older MLS, the Olympic Listing Service (OLS) with a few local brokerages and perhaps less than a hundred Realtors still using it, and the much larger Northwest MLS (NWMLS) with over 35,000 members covering all but 3 counties in the State of Washington. The NWMLS is a far superior MLS in many respects and reaches more buyers by an order of magnitude. For this reason alone, if sellers knew this, they would almost certainly list with brokers who put their listing in the NWMLS and not just the OLS.
Buyers from outside the Sequim area have many options and use a variety of online MLS websites:
1. Websites that are owned by a brokerage that subscribes to the NWMLS MLS (or OLS) IDX data feed and has it’s own web site where buyers can search for listings. My own company, iRealtyVirtualBrokers.com, has what I sincerely believe is the best designed and programmed site where buyers from anywhere can search all NWMLS listings in the Sequim area, and most of the State of Washington. More about that later.
2. The other option buyers have is to use a national website that syndicates listings from multiple states, or in the case of Zillow, from every state and every county. A service like Zillow pulls data from all MLSs, but I can tell you as a real estate attorney (ret.) that Zillow doesn’t do so legally. They “scrape” the data without a contract and without permission from MLS databases all over the country. They also scrape data without permission from tax assessor data bases all over the country. As a footnote, one might ask, “How can they get away with that?” The answer is that they are the billion dollar elephant in the room, and small local MLS services (and county tax assessors) don’t have the money to pay attorneys to get into long expensive litigation with Zillow.
The reality is that consumers like Zillow and see it as a beneficial free service. Many of my clients have been using Zillow in the past and it does have some nicely organized information, especially the listing dates and prices so you can see price drops over time.
Zillow makes its money selling advertising to Realtors, and so Realtors both love and hate Zillow, because they feel like they have no choice but to pay Zillow hundreds of dollars and in many cases $2,500 a month or more to get leads, but they hate the fact that Zillow forwards leads to multiple Realtors at once, so they are always competing to be the first to call a buyer lead. Zillow sales people tell Realtors, the first to call wins, and you’d better call within 5 to 10 minutes or you lost that lead.
When you’re searching an MLS site for homes, do you want to be bombarded by ads like this?
In the Sequim area, Zillow picks up the NWMLS listings with most of the information, but Zillow does not pick up and include all the information from the OLS. There are many shortcomings with the OLS, and I explain those in an article titled The NWMLS vs OLS in Sequim.
Buyers also use other syndicated MLS sites, like Redfin, Home.com, Trulia.com, and Realtor.com. There are other less used sites, like Movoto, RealtyTrac, Estately, Compass, Weichart, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, and Coldwell Banker and Century 21 have nationally syndicated MLS sites.
There are some serious short comings for most of these sites, and that is they either sell advertising to Realtors so as a buyer you get harassed by multiple Realtors, and their web pages are very busy web pages with photos of other agents and various pitches to other real estate related services. In addition, most of these sites are designed to force you down their sales funnel and into the hands of one of their in-house Realtors, who doesn’t have to have any qualifications as long as they are licensed. It may all make sense for the national franchise from a business profit perspective, but these sites cannot be called “consumer oriented” or “focused on a buyer’s best interests.”
What features should an MLS service have that truly puts a buyer’s interests first?
If we had the perfect online Sequim MLS service, or an MLS service for any area in the country, I think most buyers would agree with my list of features, both features that it does include as well as features it does not include. The ideal MLS would look like this:
- It would be free without forcing you to register after 3 searches, and plugging you into an annoying automatic funnel system that treats you like a cog in a profit making system.
- It would be easy to use with intuitive navigation so you don’t have to have a Ph.D. to figure out how to use all the features.
It would have wonderful search options, including a basic search, an advanced search, an address search, a listing ID search, and a map search.- It would have additional search options, like communities or neighborhoods or special search options that make sense for that market. In other words, there would be single links that would open up to entire communities of listings for you to browse.
- The listing detail pages that open for a specific listing would also be pleasant on the eyes with a beautiful design and powerful features built into the page so you can easily pull up more information one click away.
- The entire site, including the listing detail sheets would not have any advertising on them, and you should not see mug shots of several Realtors and mortgage brokers who all pay to show up so they can try to hook you like they would a fish.
- The listing detail page should give you the option, not the requirement, to ask for more information from an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent who is motivated to loyally represent you. What is not in your best interests is to get hooked up with the listing agents if you want more information. Nearly all Realtors are primarily listing agents and occasionally they will represent buyers. There are very few Exclusive Buyer’s Agents who only represent buyers and do not list properties. If you’re going to ask for more information from a listing detail sheet on a home, you definitely want that person to be an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent who will work for you and not the seller.
- As an added bonus, it would nice, but not absolutely necessary if the MLS site had a live chat button where you could ask questions. Wouldn’t that be cool?
- The best Sequim MLS site will be programmed to show you big beautiful high resolution photos of each listing. While this seems obvious, not all MLS sites do.
- A good MLS site also includes the ability to save a listing as a favorite, which most MLS sites now have, but in order for the site to remember your favorites or your saved searches, you will need to register and log in when you want access to your previous searches and saves.
- You do want privacy for your registration and use of the MLS site, and you won’t get that if you register on a nationally syndicated site like Zillow or any of the other big sites. When you use a Sequim MLS site like the one available at iRealtyVirtualBrokers.com, all your personal information remains absolutely private and is not sold, nor used for any purpose except to communicate directly with your Exclusive Buyer’s Agent and no one else.
In this article and video I’ve covered the main features of a good Sequim MLS website, and the things you want to stay away from, and I’ve given you a quick peek of the several kinds of online MLS sites. In a video coming out in a week, I’ll show you in detail all the amazing features of my Sequim MLS site at iRealtyVirtualBrokers.com. If you’re tempted, you can peek at that site now. You’re going to love it.
Last Updated on June 23, 2024 by Chuck Marunde
