Step 2 How To Search & Find Your Next Home
Now that we know how important it is to let other agents know that you are professionally represented it’s time to search for your home!
How to search for Homes
- Open houses
- Driving the area you like
- Search Online (the most popular and easiest)
- Search the MLS itself (most accurate)
- Search Zillow, realtor.com, Trulia & other sites
What’s the best way to search?
- First To Know: With “First To Know”, we enter your search criteria into the MLS. This is really the way to go because each time a new home is listed OR a home’s price is reduced that meets your criteria, you automatically receive an email alerting you to the listing! This can be huge in a “Buyer’s market” where there are many showings and multiple offers. Doing “First To Know” you will know before most other people as to the new home that was just listed”. If you wish to be the “First To Know” on listings, email us with your criteria like area, price range, home type and so forth. We will set you up in the MLS. You will receive automated emails with all homes that meet your criteria! No Obligation either. If you would like us to enter your search criteria into the mls (No Obligation), click here and give us some specifics to get started.
- 3rd Party Sites: .A word on 3rd party sites: www.zillow.com, www.realtor.com, www.trulia.com are perhaps the largest sites. These sites are in the business of selling advertising to agents. So, if you find a home here it is often hard to find the actual listing agent. Typically you end up contacting an agent who buys that zip code and NOT the actual listing agent so be careful searching 3rd party sites! If you search these sites, make sure you contact the actual listing agent.
- Realtor sites: Many people search specific agents sites. This is nothing more than an other datafeed from the mls. Some agents pay a fee to the mls to have what is called, “IDX Data Feed” meaning the MLS listings datafeed to their site. This makes that agent look like they have a ton of listings but in fact it is just another datafeed.
- The actual MLS itself (live data & most accurate).
Best Place To Search – Here is a list of MLS’s (live datafeed) to search (by population).
| Area of Coverage | Name of MLS | Link |
| All of Southeast Michigan (from thumb to Monroe) | Realcomp | www.moveinmichigan.com |
| All of Southwest Michigan including Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo up to Manistee | GRAR or SWMRIC | www.grar.com or www.swmric.com (same database) |
| Lansing Area | Lansing MLS | www.lansing-realestate.com/ |