How Complete of a Search of Local MLS Listings do we Offer?

On our site we have what’s called an IDX search (stands for Internet Data Exchange).  IDX allows me to display other Broker’s MLS listings in my search.  What’s different than a direct search of the MLS by an Agent that’s a member of the MLS is that with IDX, Broker’s can “opt-out” of IDX, meaning their listings would not be seen on my site or any other Agent that had an IDX search.  Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t know how many listings were “opt-out” of IDX and couldn’t find anyone in the Realtor Associations that knew the answer.

I just compared the listings, as of today, were in the IDX data feed vs. a direct search of the MLS.  The IDX had 2310 residential listings while the MLS had 2318. So, 8 listings were opt’ed-out of IDX.  I didn’t spend time to figure out which 8 listings they were though.

What this means is actually great news. The search on my site has 99.7% of the total MLS listings (as of today)!!

This will become more important going forward as there is a new thing in the real estate industry called “Listing Syndication”. This is where Brokers can opt to send their listings to 3rd party sites like Zillow, Trulia, Century21.com, Remax.com, etc.  The big franchisor websites like Century21.com, Remax.com, Keller Williams, Prudential, and the others are NOT Brokerages. They are third party companies that allow local franchisees to use their name for a price. These franchisor websites are getting MLS listings for their search through Listing Syndication, like Zillow and Trulia are.  There is one big difference between IDX and Listing Syndication in that Brokers can decide not to send their listings to a particular 3rd party website. If a large broker in an area decides they aren’t going to send their listings to a competitor’s franchisor site, that could reduce the number of available MLS listings on one of these sites to 80%, 70%, 60% or lower.  And there’s no rule that says sites have to disclose the percentage of MLS listings they have for a particular city or area.

Why would you want to search for listings on a site that was missing a lot of MLS listings in a particular city?

If you want to search on a site with 99.7% of the available MLS listings,  you are already here…SloCountyHomes.com!!  No other website with will have any more searchable MLS Listings for the Central Coast than SloCountyHomes.com.