idx

New Search Capabilities with Our Website

February 4, 2014 by Matt Stigliano Leave a Comment

New Polygon Search Available

We’ve recently added a new feature to our map-based search that allows you to narrow down your searches even more. With the new polygon search function, you can draw any shape on the map and search within those boundaries. We use this capability for clients all the time in the MLS and we’ve now brought it to you. It’s simple to use – just go to to our search for homes section and click on the “pencil” icon in the lower right hand corner of the map. From there you can click and draw lines in any way you want, just be sure to close the shape by connecting your last line back to your starting point.

This polygon-shape search tool is very useful when you want to include specific sections of neighborhoods, combine several neighborhoods into one search, or even eliminate specific streets or homes from your search criteria. Give it a try today!

PS The polygon search tool also works on our rental search!

Scheduled Maintenance on Property Search Pages

August 21, 2013 by khproperties Leave a Comment

Real Estate Search Down This Afternoon

This afternoon, August 21, from about 4 PM to 5 PM, we will be experiencing some scheduled maintenance on the servers that control our property search pages. This window of scheduled maintenance will allow our IDX provider a chance to move to a new data center which will offer those of you looking to search for homes a better, faster, more reliable experience on our site. We regret that we’ll be down for a bit, but we’ll be back up as soon as we can. Please check back if you run into errors, missing data, or unavailable pages. This will affect our rental search, homes for sale search, and any page that contains property listings (such as our neighborhood pages, like the one we have for The Dominion). We appreciate your patience while we make the move. On another note, we also appreciate all of you that have turned to us for your real estate search needs – we’ve been getting tons of new searches conducted everyday and we thank you for your business.

image courtesy of Pierre J.

Home Search Data – How Accurate is the Listing?

October 3, 2012 by khproperties Leave a Comment

A homeowner recently wrote to me asking that we remove their listing from our site as the listing had been cancelled. As always, I looked into the issue, and found that the property had indeed been removed from the market and that it had been listed by an agent with another company. Checking our home search, I looked for the property and confirmed that it wasn’t on our site any longer. Being curious, I decided to google the property some more and find any other instances of it being listed on the internet. What I found surprised me, but considering what I know about the internet and real estate, I guess it shouldn’t have.

On this particular listing, I was able to find reference to it on several sites. The listing had been canceled over twelve days earlier, but there it was. I wasn’t too shocked that I found it, listings have a tendency to linger around the internet longer than they should and if the agent doesn’t know the tools they use and how to use them, some listings just seem to last forever and ever. I checked the big sites first, namely Trulia and Zillow. Trulia had the listing, but did correctly note that the listing was no longer active. Zillow listed it, but was ambiguous as to whether it was active or not. I did note that the former listing agent was in the lead spot on the agent ads, which indicated to me that Zillow would still be feeding the leads to that agent. Like I said, this isn’t all that uncommon, it was upon digging further that I found the real surprise.

One of the sites that returned as a search result happened to be the former listing agent’s office website. When I navigated my way to their site, I was presented with a rather unappealing listing page generated by their IDX provider. Much like our home search, the home search was powered by an third party IDX company – there are quite a few out there. The surprise was that the IDX feed showed the property as active. Twelve days after the property was taken off the market, the listing was still for sale according to the site.

Our IDX provider, Diverse Solutions, has been with us since we relaunched this site about a year ago (and before that Matt had used them for personal sites for about three years) and we love their product. It gives our visitors a gorgeous map based home search and is easy to use. What makes it even better? The IDX feed (a stream of data provided by the San Antonio MLS direct to them) is updated every fifteen minutes. Here was another site that hadn’t been updated in twelve days! Every fifteen minutes our site gets a fresh set of data reflecting new entries into the market, price changes, new info and photos, as well as deleting sold and cancelled listings. It doesn’t get much more up to date than that (unless you use the MLS directly, which only members of SABOR can do).

We’re proud of bringing you this data and promise to continue to stay current with search technology to better your experience on our site. We love having you return day after day looking for that perfect home and thank you for the business generated from this site. Next time you’re thinking about listing your home for sale, don’t be afraid to ask your agent about their technology – accuracy does matter.

image courtesy of seantoyer

Why is My Listing on Your Site? Real Estate and IDX

July 11, 2012 by khproperties 6 Comments

This morning I received an email from a not-so-happy agent from another brokerage. They had found one of their listings on our website and wanted to know how this was possible as they had “not given us permission” nor was it “permitted by SABOR” [SABOR is our local real estate association that owns and operates the MLS]. Of course, I knew why the listing had appeared and knew that neither of these assumptions were true. In fact, the agent had given us permission and it was well within the “MLS Rules and Regulations” of SABOR for us to be showing this property on our website.

Now here’s what bothers me. I’m a nerd, I freely admit that. I tinker and toy with websites and IDX all day long looking for new ways for our company to grow and expand. So yes, I pay attention to these things more than most, but for agents not to understand or be aware of IDX in this day and age is shocking to me. I urge all brokers to sit your agents down and explain it to them, because this is a major component to your business today.

What follows is my response to the agent, edited to remove any reference to their name or their company. Hope you enjoy it (and perhaps those brokers that still haven’t taught their agents about IDX can use it as a teaching aid).

Dear agent, this explains it all.

Hi, my name is Matt and I am the web-nerd for Kimberly Howell Properties. I received your email via our system in reference to your listing at [redacted] informing us that you did not give us permission to post your listing on our site. You also mentioned that SABOR does not approve of it. You found it on our site at the following link: [redacted]

Your property is appearing on our website – www.kimberlyhowell.com – via syndication through IDX (Internet Data Exchange). You may read more about IDX and what opportunities it provides at www.sabor.com/index.php/mls/rules-a-regulations.html (See MLS Rules and Regulations, Page 2, Section 18 – Internet Data Exchange (IDX)). Via IDX, we are able to list and show virtually any property that is listed on the SABOR MLS. Via a contract (provided by SABOR) between us, SABOR, and Diverse Solutions (the company who provides us with our IDX solution), we have the ability and express permission of SABOR to show these listings on our website. SABOR provides the MLS data to Diverse Solutions and they in turn for a fee provide us with the tools to make these listings appear on our website.

There are two main ways for a property to not appear on our website (See MLS Rules and Regulations, Page 2, Section 18.1 – Authorization). One is a blanket refusal of participation in IDX by the broker, which your broker, [redacted], does not have (I know this only because of the amount of properties we have of yours that appear on our site). The other method, is a listing by listing method. This can be done via the MLS during listing data entry. The “Media” tab of the MLS input now contains two drop downs – “Display Listing on Internet” and “Display Address on Internet.” By marking “Display Listing on Internet” as “NO” you would be able to keep your listing off of the internet via IDX (and if I remember correctly all syndication – ie, it won’t appear anywhere). There are also checkboxes for these on the newest version of the Residential Real Estate Listing Agreement Exclusive Right to Sell (TAR-1101, Revision 3-02-12, Page 5, Paragraph 11. Broker’s Authority, Section B). If for some reason you have checked these boxes on your listing, then you will need to speak to SABOR directly about the issue as your data is still being pushed out via IDX.

A quick google search for [redacted] brings back an impressive amount of results (about 1.16 million, although many of these probably can be discounted as there is more than likely more than one [redacted] in the US). You can review the results yourself at: [redacted]

As you can see there are the usual results (the big aggregators – Zillow, Trulia, and REALTOR.com) as well as many small syndicators (movoto.com, homes.com. etc.) and even some brokerages and agent sites (your personalized results will vary but I see [redacted] as one of them). In this case, I’m not even finding us on page one…or the [redacted] site. Because of the dearth of results, I’m going to venture a guess and assume you have not given a refusal to participate via the “Display Listing on Internet” drop down menu in MLS. Of course, this would be the quickest and easiest way to scrub your listing from the internet, although it would still take a few days to really see the effects (SABOR has a minimum requirement of IDX feed updates of every three days – we update a lot more often however).

I hope this helps explain IDX a bit and helps you understand why your property appears on our site. It’s actually a rather common practice and is growing in size every day. We here in San Antonio are a bit behind the curve when it comes to implementing the IDX systems for broker and agent websites if you ask me, but I’m seeing it more and more and I welcome the change. With people using the internet more and more, it makes sense to make properties available on other sites, after all, the goal is to sell the property, and the more people that can view it, the larger the pool of potential buyers.

If there’s anything else I can do to help your understanding of IDX and its uses, please let me know.

I also highly recommend this article by Jay Thomspon (The Phoenix Real Estate Guy) on the subject. Although he is dealing with a different MLS (ARMLS in Arizona), the story is quite the same. Jay is widely regarded by many as the Godfather of Real Estate Blogging and is a highly sought after speaker on the subject (and many others) at many events across the nation.

Your home is not where it should be.

May 24, 2012 by khproperties Leave a Comment

The photo to the left shows a screenshot of a map of homes for sale in The Dominion. As you can see, most of the green icons are clustered together on the map in the right place. But there are a few that seem to be lingering in the large grey area to the east of The Dominion. Right smack dab in the middle of Camp Bullis. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that few people who desire the luxury living of The Dominion want to be located on the firing range of Camp Bullis. So why are these properties showing up here?

The problem typically exists with new home developments, where new streets are being created and Google maps doesn’t have the correct updated data. Sometimes, it’s caused by incorrect data in the maps themselves. Regardless of how it is caused, there are ways to fix it. In the San Antonio MLS, we (as a listing agent) are able to move properties on the map when they are placed incorrectly. With Google and other online map features the addresses can be reported and corrected. If you find your home is not showing correctly on a map, call your agent and let them know. Many searches are done by map these days and having your home in the wrong location can cause your home not showing up in a potential buyer’s search results.

Recently, someone contacted us about their property showing up in our map based search in the wrong location. Unfortunately, there is nothing we could do, as we were not the listing agent for their property. If we had been their listing agent, we would have gotten the problem solved for them, because the accuracy of home data is something we take very seriously.

Selling Your Home? Exposure is essential.

February 27, 2012 by khproperties 1 Comment

Listing a home for sale isn’t as simple as putting a sign in the yard and entering some data into the San Antonio MLS (Multiple Listing Service). I should know, I help agents do it everyday. Marketing, particularly internet marketing, has become essential to listing a home and getting it sold. Here at Kimberly Howell Properties we use multiple methods to get your property noticed by the buyers out there looking. The edge we provide is a knowledgeable staff who specialize in internet technologies and seeking out new opportunities to market and sell your home.

Where is my home listed?

When you list your home for sale with Kimberly Howell Properties, you can be assured that your home will have maximum exposure on the internet. From this site (and specifically, the listings pages and our home search) to the various syndication sites large and small, your home will be seen all over the internet. Syndication sites? Let’s talk about them…

Listing syndication sites are everywhere these days – you probably know a handful off the top of your head – Realtor.com, Zillow, and Trulia are well know these days. Realtor.com pulls info from the MLS and is typically the most accurate of the three (although not always the most detailed). Zillow and Trulia have a lot of listings, but don’t always have every listing and their data can sometimes be outdated. We work hard to keep our data up to date on these sites and many others. In addition to the big sites, we syndicate to many others – here’s some of the current sites you’ll find your homes on (they change often and we keep changing with them):

HGTV’s Front Door, Homes.com,Hotpads, Oodle, RealtyTrac, AOL Real Estate, Vast, CLRsearch, LakeHomesUSA, RiverHomesUSA, OceanHomesUSA, MyRealty, Enormo, LandWatch, Resortscape, Buyer Home Site, Condo Compare, Diggsy, eLookyLoo, Forclosure.com, FreedomSoft, Gooplex, GovListed.com, Harmon Homes, Home2Me, HomesbyLender, HomeTourConnect, Homew3inks, HouseHunt, HUDSeeker, IAS Properties, Juwai, LearnMoreNow.com, LiquidusMedia, ComcastOnDemand, Lot Network, NewHomeSource, OfferRunway, PropertyPursuit, PropertyShark, RealEstateMarketplace, RealEstateCentral, RealQuest Express, RealtyStore, Relocation.com, RentRange, The Real Estate Book, USALifestyle Real Estate, USHUD.com, Military.com, E-RealEstate, Homes and Land, and a host of over 280+ localized websites. Some sites are specific to certain types of properties such as foreclosures, lots and land, resort properties, location, etc., but if your home fits the qualifications, we’ll get it listed on every site we can!

IDX and your home.

In addition to the lengthy list above, your home will also appear on many other real estate sites – from large brokerages to agent websites – this is all thanks to the magic of IDX. IDX stands for Internet Data Exchange and it is a way for brokers to allow their listings to appear on other sites. We use IDX to help power our home search – which is why you’re able to see so many homes for sale on our site, not just our listings. We are given access to the MLS feed and allowed to post homes, no matter who they are listed by (unless they opt out), so you can see as many listings as possible.

Other Avenues

Of course, we don’t limit ourselves to just these ways of marketing your property – ask your agent what they plan to do with your home when they list it. Some of the things that I do to help our listings get found are tips and tricks that I don’t share with everyone on the blog (wouldn’t want to tell everyone all of my secrets, would I?) and some things are custom for the property (single property websites being a great example). No matter what the methods employed, your San Antonio home for sale will be given the most exposure possible thanks to our agents and our staff who work tirelessly to ensure you’re getting the most out of your work with us.

Have questions – just let us know.

image courtesy of Mike Poresky