Search for your home like an agent!

A few months ago, my Multiple Listing Service (MLS) has offered a free tool for home buying and selling. It is called listingbook. You need to ask your agent to set you up an account on it. Unlike most other real estate website, data is pulled directly from the Multiple Listing Service's computer every 15 minute. This is important because I have seen other sites where the listing price is inaccurate and even status is not correct (doesn't mention if listings are under deposit, pending or even off the market).

The cool thing about listing book is that you see a lot of information .You can see a lot of information which is important to your home purchase, such as:

• Address
• Complex or Area Name
• All of the pictures uploaded for the home on the MLS
• Room Dimensions
• Heating
• Days on the Market
• Tax Information
• Information on when the listing price was changed
• Basement
• Price per square foot
• Current Status (sold, under deposit, active, under contract, off market)
• Item's included with the sale (oven, washer, dryer)
• Water & Sewer Information

Home sellers are made aware of the following:

• Other homes for sale in their neighborhood
• Review sales of homes in the neighborhood in years past
• Can see all other homes for sale in the town by price range
• How many buyers on listingbook matched their criteria to their home
• How many buyers in a given day looked at their home on listingbook, once the listing hits the market
• Data on how long other properties have been on the market, and if any & when price reductions where taken
• What is happening to competing homes (going under deposit, having signed contracts, getting reduced, taken off the market)

Another neat thing about this is you get set up on your search criteria. You can pick what towns you want to live in, style of home, bedrooms, baths, and put in additional features you want or don't want (guest house, pool, horse property). You will see all of the houses matching your criteria from all of the real estate office's on the MLS. You can 'favorite' and 'reject' properties. You can also write notes directly on a listing with any thoughts, questions or comments so your agent can help you out!

Every morning you would get an email if there are any new listings matching your criteria, price changes, status changes and more. This is a great tool that is much more powerful than even realtor.com. If you are interesting in having a listingbook account, please send me an email to Jonathan.Hall@SothebysRealty.Com, with your name and what you are looking for in your next home (town, price range, bedrooms, yard, etc), and I will be happy to set one up for you at no cost or obligation!

I have also set up a new tool that lets you search for homes in a number of ways! You don't need to register or contact me for anything, unless you have questions on listings and would like to arrange a showing! For free & with no obligation you can:

• See my office's featured listings
• Search for homes via map
• Do a general search for real estate

Jon