Is Realtor.com really stupid or am I missing something?

Question

I have been trying to figure out how to do a keyword search on Realtor.com. When it says, signup to see your searches and favorite homes, I thought maybe if I signup, I can do keyword searches. I signed up and still cant do any keyword searches. If all you can do is search by city, I seriously think they shouldnt be in business anymore. LOL.

Is there any other site that allows keyword search of MLS listings? I know zillow has that option but the MLS listings are not updated there fast enough or sometimes not at all.

Jeremy Pace · Answer

You could ask a real estate salesperson to help you with these kind of searches.  The MLS is a subscription service ... and realtor.com is their retail service front-end.  It isn't designed to facilitate investor research.

Brent Seehusen · Answer

Redfin.com covers Atlanta and Raleigh and they allow keyword searches of the remarks.

Chris C. · Answer

Try this search in google.  Of course change handyman to your desired search term.  Not sure how often google crawls realtor.com so not sure how timely the info is.

site:realtor.com handyman

Chris Martin · Answer

For TMLS (Triangle area), try for example http://realestate.luxurymovers.com/search-city.php  I have no affiliation with this site. If you look around, there are other similar MLS front end sites, but regarding "...other site that allows keyword search of MLS listings..." you will need a broker with MLS access (e.g. a Realtor) to search the broker only comments section.

Jonathan Taylor Smith · Answer

In most cases Jeremy Pace is correct in his posting that a real estate agent would be able to setup a keyword based MLS search for you. I can do this for you for Raleigh and the surrounding Triangle cities, but not outside of that area.

Kumar Chin · Answer

Thanks for the feedback guys. Phil, I have been using Carolinahome.com for Charlotte market. I needed to cover the surrounding markets like Raleigh, Greenville and Atlanta.

Phil G. · Answer

Many MLS operate their own public facing website.  Found this one for NC -- though I'm not sure you were looking in your backyard or not.

http://www.carolinahome.com/findahome.aspx

Keyword searches on the MLS are usually for searching the public text remarks and not fields that are stored in a specific field (e.g. REO, sewer type, etc.)

Jim Blatchley · Answer

@Kumar Chin I just checked out Realtor.com as I hadn't been on there for quite sometime. It seems that they operate with lots of search filters rather than keywords. They do have many filters so it's fairly easy to narrow down your search. If you click on the filters at the top of the page you will see all the features and you can add more features if you want.

I hope this helps and good luck with your searching.

Is Realtor.com really stupid or am I missing something?

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