Are You Searching the MLS is Realtime?

What is MLS?

MLS stands for multiple listing service. Every home for sale listed by a real estate agent, unless it is specifically exempted from MLS, will be listed in MLS. Only real estate agents and other professional affiliates can access MLS in Real Time, but that doesn’t mean a home buyer or home seller can’t get the same information — just not directly. There are services such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com that offer MLS search capabilities online, however they are third party services and depending on how frequently they update or refresh their data, the MLS listings you access with these services are not in real time.

In today’s housing market the homes are flying off the market within hours of being listed, and having access to real time MLS provides the advantage of seeing new listings as soon as they come onto the market.

FlexIDX is a service we use at Arizona Home Group which allows our users to access the MLS is Real Time. We do provide this service for our website visitors, customers, and clients along with tutorials on how to create a search based on specific criteria.

For Sale By Owners in MLS

While there is no separate category for a For Sale by Owner (or FSBO) listing, the MLS can contain listings from sellers who are unrepresented.

The way FSBOs circumvent some MLS restrictions is to pay a flat fee to a discount real estate broker to enter the information, but the seller is not really represented.
Instructions to present all offers directly to the seller is often frowned upon or prohibited by MLS authorities.
Sometimes the selling commission is less than the fee agents are offered by traditional brokers — which does not motivate agents to show these listings, even though they cannot legally refuse to do so.

Many services offer to provide home buyers with a list of available homes on the market, but few provide comprehensive data.

MLS Searches

If you’re beginning a home search, you can ask your agent to customize a search for you that will automatically send you updated listings. Not all agents will set up a search for you based on anything other active listings, so if you want to receive price reductions, pending or sold sales data, ask for it.

Here are a few ways (among many) that you can request to have your report customized:

ZIP Code
Radius Search, within a specified distance from a target address
Street or Subdivision

Within those parameters, you can further define your search to:

Price range from low to high
Number of bedrooms and baths
Garages
Pools and spas
Square footage

Your requirements can be even more clearly defined, depending on your priorities. But be aware that as the number of exceptions climb, you might be missing out on opportunities. It’s wise to keep the list somewhat limited, especially for those cases where a data field might not contain data due to human error.

We send updated listings to anyone who contacts us. We will send you customized updated listings daily from anywhere in the Valley, click here to begin receiving yours directly to your inbox tomorrow.