Easier Photo Viewing. Click Anywhere To Move Forward.

Just wanted to tell you about a new photo viewing system.

As many of you know, we added numbers above the image. This is for netboot users with a small screen.

And now we added rollover arrows. You don't need to click on the arrow itself though. You only need to click on anywhere in the right 50% of the photo and it will go to the next photo. Or 50% of the left photo to see that one.

I might still teak the design to make it more intuitive for those that don't read this.

Any other suggestions? Does it work well on your iPad?

Frank
Owner FranklyMLS.com

SOLD DATA IS BLOCKED

MRIS has required that we block much of the important sold data including DOM and multiple photos.

To see this info you have to logged into the site as a member.

If you are not a member yet, do this

1) On the front page of FranklyMLS.com is asks for your email (no passwords needed). Enter it and press submit

2) You should get an email confirming your email address. If you do not, then check your spam folder. (especially Yahoo users)

3) Once you confirm your email and it should say "Welcome john@john.com"

4) Leave cookies ON.

5) Then you can see sold data.

Also a discussion on this is over at http://facebook.com/franklymls

If you only see the "?" that means your email has yet to be confirmed. Check your spam folders too!

Let me know if you have problems.

If you don't see a login box and you don't see "Welcome", let me know, but you might also try another web browser.

Share Listings via Email to Multiple People

With super short URLs, people oftentimes will copy and paste the URL of the listing to email it to a friend or their Realtor.

Many don't know that you can email the listing in 1 click. In the upper right corner click on "Email/Share" the listing. This will send you to half way down the page where you enter your FROM email address (which will become the "Reply-To address) and the TO address that it will be going to (spouse, friend, Realtor, yourself).

Starting today you can now enter multiple email addresses by adding a comma.

Name@Name.com, John@john.com, eric@eric.com

And depending on the browser you have, it will remember your emails so you only need to press SEND for each listing.

Would anybody want to email 5-10 listings at one time? Maybe from the spreadsheet view or favorites?

Also we are beta testing 2 driving directions solutions. Please check them out.

Frank

Agent Past Performance Details

Exclusive: No other site posts this data publicly!

I have spoken before about how important it is to have background sales data on EVERY local agent.

Whether it be to check out their current listings to see how well (or poorly) they market the property, or to see their PAST performance.

Now we made it easier to see this data.

WHERE: The data is shown in the middle of every listing where we show the agent's name and number.

The first link will show you the agent's current listings that are both ACTIVE and Under Contract (the UC have a line through them).

Then we show the past performance. You can look at "All Sold Deals" which will show every deal they have done since 2005 regardless of whether they were a Listing Agent or a Buyer's Agent. Here you can see how many deals they have done, and how many are short sales or foreclosures. This high level view can also tell you if that "short sale expert" really is an expert.

Then you can see the agent's track record in their capacity exclusively as a Listing Agent. Both since 2005 or since 2009. I broke this up because the market has changed so much and I prefer only seeing the most recent data.

When you see the sold data don't miss how the bottom of the spreadsheet will show you an AVERAGE of the agent's performance. Average days on the market, average sold price and my favorite is the Average %OL, which is Percentage of Original List (which is more important than %L, which is the % drop from the last list price after previous price drops).

I also like to sort by %OL to see how many times an agent has gone over list (crucial data for predicting if a current new listing might sell for over list or to call the agent's bluff when they say "this will sell fast and probably over list," and your buyer's agent can respond "Not likely, FranklyMLS says you did 100 listings and only 2 went over list, so that is just a 2% chance")

Disclaimer: I don't really believe in averages. Instead I believe in looking at data and getting a feel for trends. Averages are so easy to be sqewed, for example if you have a 1,000 days on the market $5M mansion, your stats will bomb.

Then you can see the agent's track record in their capacity exclusively as a Buyer Agent.

Again be skeptical of averages!! An agent might win a client an amazing $100,000 underpriced bank listing that happens to go over $5,000 list price, or "101% of %OL." That doesn't mean they are worse than an agent that helped a client get a "deal" or "95% of %OL" on a home that is 15% overpriced. Just look for trends.

Shameless plug for Buyer Agents in general: Hum, ok so now there is more data! Great! So some of you will feel MORE empowered to go solo. Others will smartly think "Hum, maybe there actually is some value to a good Realtor. One that knows how to digest this data and work for the seller's best interest."

At the bottom is a linkable example.

Thoughts?

Frank

Creator FranklyMLS.com

---

Listing Agent: Michael Rosen 703-880-6770 from FranklyRealty.com
Agent's Current Listings: Actives & Under Contracts

Agent's Past Performance: All Sold Deals (why?)
As a Listing Agent: Last 5yrs or 2009+
As a Buyer's Agent: Last 5yrs or 2009+

More Accurate Aerial Maps

I got a complaint that the aerial maps that show up on every home for sale were off by a few homes. I thought I couldn't do anything about it because that data is provided to us by the actual MLS.

But after some digging, I found a way to bypass the data they gave us and use our own location finding.

So let me know if you ever noticed this problem and if it is fixed.

Frank

(ps. The pin point is missing on the aerial, I'm working on that)

County and City Outlining is live

Now when your search includes one of the top 30 popular cities or counties, it will show an outline of that area.

Also you can remove that outline to see homes for sale nearby Currently this feature is slow. We are working on making it faster.

Let me know your thoughts.

Frank

Blog post via iPhone sorry for typoes.

Syntax Summary of Features

I finally updated the "advanced" search page. Soon these will all be checkbox options. But until then... this makes it easier to digest.

Search Syntax Summary

Actives Only	Add the word Active like: 22044 Active (the default is Actives and Under Contracts)
Solds Only	Click the checkbox for Solds within 5 years or solds from 2009+.
Home Type	Enter it as a keyword Detached, Condo, or Townhouse. Try: Mclean Detached or try: Arlington Condos Active
LAND only	Just add LAND, like: Arlington LAND
# of Bedrooms	Try: Falls Church Condos 2bdr or try: 22201 (1br,2br) or try: Alexandria -1br (to remove 1 bedrooms)
# of Total Bathrooms	Try: 22201 2ba (note that 1.5 baths count as 2 total baths)
Year Built	Use this format: Arlington [Built2000-2009]
Lot Size (Acres)	Use: Arlington [Lot .5-3] (Blog with details)
Subdivision	Use sub=cherrydale
Schools	Try ES=Franklin Sherman or MS=Something or HS=Oakton (note this only works if the agent entered the data)
Phrases	Use Quotes like: "bring all offers" or try: "Price william"
REMOVE areas/words	Also known as a negative search. Try: Arlington -condo
Multiple areas/words	Also known as an "OR" search. Use ( ) like: Try: (22101,22201,22314) active or try: (granite,pool,garden) "great falls" active which means: Show all Actives with Granite OR pool OR garden in great falls
Investor Search	List price divided by Tax assesssment. LP=LOW or LP=LOWER or LP=LOWEST like: LP=LOW Arlington condo (see advanced page)
Only Foreclosures	Add the word Foreclosure like: Manassas Foreclosure Also look for the ƒ symbol. (see Blog Post)
Only Short sales	Use it as a keyword. Like: Oakton Short sale
Partial search	Use * symbol. Like: water* for waterfront, or try: fx7*
Agent Search	Use their full name and check off the solds like: Thomas Royce This will give you the agent's listings and purchases (see column on far right). For just one or the other email me for details or watch the blog.

Embedded video on listings

The local mls, MRIS, only has one authorized video hosting service, which is Videosbyaddress.com. The mls does not allow branded video sources or even Youtube.

Now if an agent has a video hosted with videosbyaddress.com and attached to an mls listing, the video will show up embedded in the listing itself. No need to click on the virtual tour link.

Thanks VBA for the partnership and special coding. Realtor, don't be silly, you should be doing this!

Here is an example of a listing with the video embedded:

http://franklymls.com/FX7534209

Frank

No more jumpy images!! Yeah!

FranklyMLS.com is the only site that shows the largest photos as the default. Everyone else has to make room for ads and sales pitches. But with that came the drawback or "jumpy images." A really annoying thing that would happen in about 30% of the listings. If the agent uploaded odd sized photos, they photos would jump and make it nearly impossible to rollover the thumbnails.

Well after trying a bunch of complex solutions, I remembered my programming "how to build a website" class from 14 years ago and brought back an old school solution.

Yeah! No more jumpy images. Well at least until somebody reports it to me.

Let me know if you have anymore jumpy images. Email me the browser type, the OS and the browser version.

Remember, we are just a small operation here, trying to keep ahead of the big boys. Thanks for your support.

Frank

Begone those pesky OUTLIERS!

One benefit to FranklyMLS's keyword search is that it is lightening fast! But the downside has always been that it is only 98% accurate.

About 2% of the time a search for a random zip code might pull up a random 22101 Beachway Drive in Maryland instead of McLean's 22101.

But now that is all so very 2010.

We now figured out a way to scrub out these outliers which makes the new zip code boundary feature that much more powerful.

Now if you search for zip codes, it will recognize that you want a zip code and only show you homes with that zipcode. Skipping over house # and even remarks.

Let me know if you get any errors. Soon hopefully we can do this for county searches, as I know people might search for Arlington and get annoyed by homes on Arlington Blvd in another city.

Hope you like it.

Frank

Netbook Friendly Photo browsing.

Our photos are 4x larger then any other site. Why? Because most sites waste room with advertising.

The only downside is those with smaller screens sometimes can't see the entire photo and that makes it tougher to get to the thumbnails.

Well now we adding numbers above the main image.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Rollover those numbers and it will change the photos.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Frank