As demanded! SORT by column headers!

You asked for it.
I gave a bunch of excuses for not doing it.
Now we have it!

Previously the only way to sort in spreadsheet mode was to click on a scroll bar and pick from a luandry list of ways to sort.

We just recently redid the backend of the site (to make it 50% faster) and in doing so, somehow the sorting option works with the new infrastructure.

We will still have the drop down sort options. We might remove the repetative stuff like Price and DOM, but we will leave the more complex srting like % of tax assessment to sales price.

Thoughts?

Frank

Now showing LAND

We now are showing LAND. It will have the word: Land: before the address. I might change this to a "L" after the MLS number so it uses up less room.

To search for just LAND in a county like Arlington, search for Arlington Land. It will still pull up homes that mention land in the remarks, but it should be 90% accurate and lightening fast.

Frank

Add Private Notes

So now you can add private notes on homes that you like.

In the full view (the 1 page with all the info on the house) look in the upper right hand corner. There you can add notes about that particular home. Fill in the box and press SAVE (does anybody want this to automatically add the home as a favorite?).

Then as long as you are a) logged in or b) on the same computer, it will keep your notes.

If the home is saved as a favorites, when you rollover the MLS#, it shows you the remarks, but it also will show you your private notes. That way when you have 10-30 homes saved to favorites, you can remember what you thought of each one.

Frank
Broker FranklyRealty.com

Tons of Sorting Options

Many people miss the power of the sorting options in all search mode, so I thought I would go over them now in detail. Note that once you sort, when you come back to the site or do another search, that sort option will be the default for you. No need to resort it each time.

To sort, look for the "Sort by" followed by a scroll bar. This should be above the results.

Price/High- This one should be obvious. This is the default. Homes with the highest (current) "for sale" price are listed first.

Price/Low- The lowest (current) "for sale" price.

DOMm/Low- This is Days on the Market "M" M stands for MLS. SO it shows you how many days this home WITH THIS MLS# has been on the market.

DOMp/High- This is Days on the Market "P" P stands for Property. This DOMp shows you total days on the market for this property regardless of multiple agents and several MLSs (it resets after 90 days off the market). This number is more accurate if you want to know "How many days have they been trying to sell this home?" Many sites won't show you this. They think the consumer needs less info and they dumb down their site.

(more on DOMM vs DOMP)

City- Alphabetically by City.
Zip- Sorted by Zipcode
BDR/Low- Sorting by the # of total bedrooms. Lowest first.
BDR/High- Highest number of bedrooms first.

Lot/Low- Lot size (if entered in by the Realtor). Lowest first.
Lot/High- Highest listed first.

ADVANCED- These are more complex!

List$/Tax Low- This is List Price divided by Tax Assessment. The lowest ratios are shown first. This is an amazing feature that is frequently missed. While sure, I constantly say NOT to use the tax assessment to value a home accurately, you CAN use it to quickly show you the "bargains" in a zip code. Homes that are 20-50% below tax assessment mgiht be great fixer uppers or bank deals. You can even sign up for alerts to "show me homes that are 50% below the tax assessment". This is a must have for investors. Here is Jeff's video how to:

List$/LastSold- This will in one click show you homes that have dropped the most since their previous purchase price. It is the current List Price divided by the Last Sold price.

Built/Low- Year built.
Built/High

SQFT/Low Total interior square feet. Sometimes this includes the basement, sometimes it does not. Also note that MANY agents leave this off, so this is not a great way to sort.
SQFT/High- Larger units shown first.

Subdivision/Asc- Alphabetical order for the subdivision. A-Z
Subdivision/Desc- Same as above but Z-A

# Views/High- This is cool. This tracks the number of people that have looked at the property. So you can sort to see the most popular listings first.

Last$Change- This sorts by the last DATE of change in the price. So the homes at the top have most frequently dropped their price. This can be better than sorting by DOMm to see newly listed homes. The recently dropped homes shouldn't be missed!

OpenHouse- Pulls up all the Official Open Houses first and then the Unofficial "maybe" Open Houses based ont eh remark's keywords. For example if it says "Open Sunday" in the remarks and the home has been on for 60 days, there is a good chance the agent was too laxy to update their listing. We use the wavy symbiol to show maybe: ~.

Walk Score High- A new feature! Allows you to quickly see which homes have a higher walkability score from WalkScore.com

CloseDate High- This works great in the SOLD mode. It lets you sort by the date the home last sold. Good for recent sales, but also for homes that sold in the 1990s (when hairdoos were cool!).

ListDate High- Shows the most recent listed homes first. This works well for people watching Short Sales that are under contract since the DOMm get frozen.

Am I missing anything? Any benefit of one of these?

And don't forget you can export to Excel and sort using that as well.

Written by the Owner of FranklyMLS.com: Frank LL0SA

Now with 15 months sold data

Before we had only 3 months of sold data. Now we have 15 because you all requested it and loved it so much.

Frank

MLS Blocking Comments & Zillow. Also Wiki Reviews moved up

So NAR just launched some new rules that allow the seller to block public comments about the home and block Automatic Valuation Model like Zillow.

Being that FranklyMLS.com is the First Wiki MLS with public comments and photos, one might think this would put a damper on things. Nope. For the 5% of homes that block this data, we will be letting consumers know that "Home seller has blocked this data".

If they blocked the Zillow AVM data, then we can not show the Zillow price. So instead we will link to it. Heck, the consumer is just going to jump over to Zillow anyhow to get it (if they want it, even though the AVM is more of a toy and not to be used as anything close to an appraisal).

If the seller blocks comments... then if a buyer agent (or consumer) adds comments to a listing that does not allow public comments, that contributor's name and link to their website will show up, but the comments will be blocked (in red). The consumer will then have to contact the cotributor (usually buyer agents) directly for information that they have.

Therefore the information is NOT public on the site.

What next?

Ban a buyer agent representing a buyer's best interest from telling a buyer over the phone what they thought about a place? Gimme a break.

Blocking this stuff just makes the homeowner look bad.

In an unrelated related note, in spreadsheet mode the wiki comments have been added in blue to the rollover. Now you can more easily see what others have said about the home.

Frank

Embedded Walkscore and sort in spreadsheet!

Now the full listings have the Walkscore instead of linking to a page that will slowly calculate the walkscore.

Also the Walk Score is displayed on the front page spreadsheet mode (all the good stuff is only on spreadsheet mode). And you can even sort by Walk Score! 

Anybody wanna make a Youtube video thanking Walk Score for all the cool work they are doing? I know they would appreciate it.

Posted by Frank

SOLD DATA LIVE!

First we gave you email alerts with the sold data for homes in your saved search and favorites.

Now you can search for the MLS sold data.

So the same day the Realtor closes the listing as SOLD, we have it. This includes seller subsidy, something the tax records will never have and can be as high as $50,000.

Other sites might show old Tax data, but we have the MLS data which is more accurate and faster.

Update: now with 15 months.

Enjoy

Frank

Numbers in the Pins for the Map

New little feature. For those that get their results on a map, we added numbers in the pins. Those pins will correspond to the first column in the spreadsheet mode.

So home #1 on the spreadsheet will have a pin with a 1 in the middle.

Soon you will be able to mouseover the pin and it will highlight the row for the home on the spreadsheet.

Frank

New sorts, Like Open Houses & Last Price Change

You can now sort and see all the Open Houses in your search criteria. The shortcut symbols are:
^ stands for a scheduled Open House
~ stands for "maybe" an Open House based on the keywords.

We show TWICE the number of Open Houses compared to other sites. How? We show not only the Open Houses based on great Realtors that check an "Open House" box when entering in the MLS data, but also the lazy Realtors that just put the info in the remarks.

Other things you can now sort by: Subdivision. Year built.

And here is one you have requested: Last Change in Price. Similar to sorting by Days on the Market, but it shows you Days on the Market at the current price.

I know some of you want to be able to click on the column headers to immediately sort that way. We might do that, but it isn't as easy as it seems (with the system that we have).

Frank

"Check it out" Email a Friend, or YOU. 1 Click

New "Check it Out" feature.

Now you can email a friend, yourself, or your agent an MLS listing in one click. Also this is done without passwords or logging in.

Look halfway down the page (should I move it up?) for the three boxes and a submit button.

1) Enter the "from" address and a
2) Enter the "to" address and
3) Answer the spam math question

You only have to do the above once. Then the site will cookie (remember) what you put in, and going forward you will only need to press the submit button.

Thoughts?

Frank