Viewing Listings

I use the MLS daily to search for properties for my clients. I create saved searches for as many clients as I can, although I often will enter a new search. When the system has found the properties, I may sort them differently, select all of the properties and display the full agent view. I can then quickly scroll through the window to see all of the listings. I can also use the browser's search function to quickly find something and can also print the window, something I now usually do to save it as a pdf for use on my iPad.

So how long might this take with ProSearch and Matrix?

A search today for all active listings of single family homes in Cupertino under $1,300,000 returns 47 listings.

Using ProSearch, it takes about 5-10 seconds for the window to start displaying all of the listings. As soon as that window begins displaying the information I can start reading it and scrolling though it. It takes about 50 seconds to display all of the listings. This is the complete, full agent views with all of the pictures and full MLS history. After the window is completely displayed I can use the browser's search capabilities.

With Matrix it also takes about 10 seconds to display the first listing. If I want to see all of the pictures I would need to click a button to view each picture, or I could click on the one picture to open up another window that can display the pictures. If I want to see the full MLS history I click another button. Click again to view the next property and repeat for every property. Not really sure how long that will take to view every property, but it's certainly many minutes. There's also no way to use the browser's search function to search all of the listings. It could only search one listing at a time.

A quicker way might be to generate the pdf report. You'll only see a single picture and incomplete MLS history, but it's certainly quicker than clicking multiple times for each listing. Matrix takes about 50 seconds to generate this pdf file, and during that time you're presented with a blank screen. You can only begin viewing the properties after the pdf is completely generated.

And why did I look for homes in Cupertino less than $1,300,000 for this example? I needed less than 50 property results since a Matrix report can't have more than 50. Unfortunately, most of my searches return more than 50 properties. Using Matrix will require that I break up my searches into groups of 50 or less. How much more time is that going to require?

So, Matrix requires much more effort and perhaps 10 times the amount of time to do what ProSearch does today.