1) One-Way Information. "Here are the homes for sale, as marketed by the listing agent. Take it, trust it, or leave it."
2)Photoless MLS Listings! They sell for $15,000 less but they are a pain for everyone. Oftentimes foreclosures or a listing by an underpaid or sucky agent.
3) Confusing Branding.Who is selling what? Each of the 60,000 MLS listings are plastered with one "Brought to you by" buyer agent from one brokerage. I tried to explain: "No, I am not listing 1,298 homes," but it isn't the consumer's fault, it is confusing! See my account on Homesdatabase.com/frankly a service that many agents pay $30 a month for. My annoying face on each listing.
4) Limited Data or Sign-In Required. All but a few sites have stopped the practice of requiring users to create an account and login in order to see listings. Also may sites will NOT show you all the data possible. Some even hide the addresses so you have to "call your local trusted Realtor!"
5) Slow, Fancy, & Feature Filled- Some of it might be useful, but it slows down the website. Their goal is to have such perfectly targeted results that it can take minutes to find something.
6) Small photos.As our computer resolutions get higher, the images get smaller. On my screen most MLS sites show 4 inch photos.
7) Computer based. No focus on cell-phone ready searching.
(Attn Buyer Agents, do you have a progressive office? Let me come and talk at your Tuesday meeting so that more Buyer Agents can get involved)
The World's First Wiki MLS. No, we can not CHANGE the listing itself (or the price!) as presented by the listing agent. What we do is ADD comments and photos to the listing and as a community flag and remove inappropriate comments. Every buyer agent with an ounce of techie-ness should be taking Buyer Agent PhotoAlbums. What is that? Well, the listing agent takes photos for their sellers to put the house in one light, but the buyer agent takes photos for their clients in a more realistic light. Including shots of how far it might be from a highway, or showing bathroom water damage or a roach infested place (scroll to bottom of those listing to see the comments).
The goal is toadd information, and not opinions. No "this house stinks" or "this house is great," but instead factual information like "This house backs to Rt 66" or "This house is listed at 44.6% lower than the purchase price in 2006." Information not evident in the listing agent's presentation. I wish everyone was like Loudoun agents Tony and Danilo with their Blogback blogging for feedback where they list the pros and cons of their listings and ask buyer agents to leave comments. How can you find the reviewed homes? When you do a search on FranklyMLS.com, homes with a yellow highlighter, those have the comments, see an example search for 1021 Clarendon.
2) More Photos Than ALL other MLS sites.
So far, prelaunch, 10 buyer agents from 5 firms add photo albums with as many as 40 photos of 50 properties. With this, the database grows to thousands of extra photos. Consumers want PHOTOS,PHOTOS, PHOTOS and on our co-opetition website, several otherwise competing agents come together to give what the customer wants... MORE INFO and PHOTOS.
Sidenote: A year ago I bought a baseball glove from Amazon.com. It was photoless. After getting the glove, they asked if I would take a photo of it and post it on Amazon. That is what first gave me the idea for this Wiki MLS. (see post)
The site also has a point system. 1 point for comments, and 10 points for a photo album. For that, the contributor is listed underneath the listing instead of my mugshot on each listing (see above). They also get a front page link to their website. Why contact me as a buyer agent, if another agent has actually BEEN to the property, specializes in that area and has helped you get more information on it.
3) No branding, advertising, or logins required. Other than the required link from the site owner (me) at the bottom of each page, there is no advertising or cheesy recommended buyer agent next to each listing. Only when a buyer agent contributes to a listing with comments or a photo album, do they get a link to their site. Also, you should already have a buyer's agent by the time you hit this site.
4) ALL MLS DATA(that is legally allowed to be shown) We show everything. Including BOTH the Days on the Market-M (MLS#) and Days on the Market- P (Property). Otherwise known as DOMM and DOMP We even show you the "within the industry 'you must be nuts'" listing agent's name and number. Only 1 other site does that. Don't worry agents, there is a disclaimer that says NOT to call the listing agent and why. So why have it? Well the consumer should ultimately decide.
What we can NOT legally show is: Realtor Remarks, Compensation amount (ask your agent if they take buyer agent bribes), Owner's phone number, showing instructions and lockbox codes.
5) Not Fancy, just FAST.Except for photos of houses, there is not one graphic, icon, logo on the site. No Geewhiz, just speed. With that comes fewer features, but how many features do you see on Google or Craigslist? Just give me info fast, even if it isn't 100% accurate (as in there might be a "madison manor" in both Arlington and Baltimore). FranklyMLS.com searches by keyword only. I know that looking at 400 homes can take a ton of time. The goal was to count each click and scroll in the home buying process and cut that time down by 80%.
"Sexy?" homes?Search the Realtor Public Remarks. Try it, search for "sexy." Only a 3 of the 33 local MLS sites will let you search the Realtor Public Remarks as part of an advanced search. Some information in these remarks can't be found in any drop down or checkbox search. For example: Lake Ridge Short Sales or Arlington Metro
Keyword search for ANYTHING.One box, search anything. Including, search by ZipCodes, subdivision name, school name (if the agent put it in), street name, street number, city, brokerage name, and even by agent name (nobody does that). It takes getting used to, but it works for Google and Craigslist, dso it works for FranklyMLS.com
Spreadsheet mode.Search like the Realtor's back end system. Text only results to quickly find what you need. Also the columns show you in a quick second the List price, Original Starting price, Tax assessment and DOMp/m. (See link above)
Photos only mode. Just a page full of 50 medium sized images. For the quick glance.
Photos and Details mode with image rollover. Most sites that have this mode have useless 1 inch images. We show in this mode the 4 inch images that other sites use for their "full size." Also you can use a rollover link to see all the other 2-30 images.
6) HUGE PHOTOS.Example. All the other sites use the 4 inch photos for each listing. Probably to leave room for mortgage calculators, frames, ads etc. We instead are the only ones that pull the high res 7 inch photos as the DEFAULT. Bigger is better.
7) Cell Phone Ready.Nobody offers this... for FREE.
With the former slogan, "So easy, a cellphone could use it," the site wasn't designed for the cellphone, but it is so simple that it still works great on most cell phones. I recommend the "photo mode." This is perfect for when you are in front of a house and want to get the details. I suggest using the house # and the zipcode.
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Other interesting features:
FACEBOOK integration.We all have been asking ourselves if a useful tool for Facebook will come up. Well now there is one. You can "save" each listing into your Facebook account with 1 click. Then your friends can comment on what you have selected, or you can share them easily with loved ones.
Super Short URLS.http://franklymls.com/FA6683625.htmlfor easy copy and pasting. (soon we are dropping the .html) into an email for others to share. I'm obsessed with "easy."
Find Similar Results: If you see a "more" or a ">>" click it to find similar homes or to see ALL the listings that a particular agent has (great for comparing listing agents!).
Links to similar Craigslist FSBOs, and to Zillow for previous sale data.
Link to that property on Google maps. Click on the "map" link.
So that pretty much wraps it up. I hope you have enjoy the site. I would love to get some feedback from current users (see Feedback contest), local agents and others on how to improve the site.
- Written by Frank Borges LLosa-Broker/Owner FranklyRealty.com
Fastest MLS site out there, and easiest to access (that I've found).
It would also be helpful to search sold properties with the ability to filter by sale date, sale amount, zip, community, etc.
Also , I know it will be quite a task to install a "my account" function to allow users to save properties. However, can you come up with some system that allows you to send a listing to an email address...and then to "send history" of all listings sent to an email address? Kind of an easier way to do "my account" and allows you to capture email addresses.
Legally we don't have access to the sold data on the MLS. But it is a good idea.
Regarding the account process, I have debated this for a long time. I have really shied away from yet another website with usernames and passwords. I just hate that. So what I did was integrated it into Facebook. So if you sign up for Facebook you can save all the homes into your account and your friends can see it that way. Does that work? Also I made the URLS super short so that they can be shared.
Another reason I don't want to capture emails is I don't want other buyer agents scared to send their clients to the site. If they see me taking their customer's emails, they might get scared. They easily scare. But thanks for the suggestions.
Frank, First of all, what a good idea. Everything about the site is good. I mean, I have some recommendations, but it is great for the consumer. Also -- most of the time, it is much more data -- and more useful data -- than realtor.com, yahoo, homes.com (ugh), and the million other pretenders/poseurs/wannabes. You've got the real deal. I even have turned on two realtors to the site (names withheld to protect...the guilty...).
Also it is Blazing fast, compared to the other sites. And there will _almost_ always be great photos, with quick download times, too.
No need to hide your 2 Realtors. Instead ask them to participate. This was made for other Realtors too! The Realtors just started a new annoying login system. With this site they can bypass that and get the data fast
I found your site via google. At some point I stumbled on your site and grew to like it. In particular, I liked :
- All the information, all the pictures on one page.
- that I didn't have to create an account to use it.
- the google map link to the houses address. I can't tell you how many times on other sites that I had to go to google map myself and enter the address. What a pain! The use of google maps over mapquest or yahoo is appreciated.
- the image layout.
a) I love the inclusion of all thumbnails. Some sites don't provide thumbnails. You have to peruse all images, many of which you wouldn't have looked at had you seen the thumbnail.
b) The simplistic way to change the image by mousing over the thumbnail.
c) the fact that this powerful functionality exists without flash or java.
My suggestions:
- Make your query results rss-able. I have an i-google homepage, consisting of my favorite rss feeds. I have one tab devoted to rss real estate feeds.
- Add a firefox and internet explorer search bar plugin. I've already made one for your site that I've installed in both my browsers.
- Provide a map based interface like the saabrealtors site I mentioned earlier. The other sites has two flaws. a) It uses mapquest's crappy interface. b) Due to javascript madness, you can't select a house and have it open in a new browser tab or window.
- A link to the school system for that neighborhood
I think the site is nice and simple, although sometimes a bit hard to look at.
I like how you provide the DOMP & DOMM, except there's not a definition anywhere in the site as to what the differences are between the two. Also, what does the Original Price represent? The price of the house that the seller originally listed it for or the price of the house when it was first sold after it was built? I think having a definition for some of these headings would help. Also, the spaces between the each listing is a bit narrow. Other than that, thanks for providing this website.
I found it during a search engine and have been using it for up to date MLS Listing every since.
My real estate license have expired but I am renewing it so since I can't access M R I S currently it is a quick snap shot view. Thanks again and keep it up.
This is my go-to site. I may use others to find discrepancies/fraud.
Appreciate the data you provide with your search engine!! All MLS search engines should provide as much data!!!
Few suggestions: Include rentals in the search. Add tax ID to the listing. If possible, cross reference the address to any previous MLS# to check for re-list. Great search engine. Great Blog. I must confess, I don't like giving out your search engine address, I figure you upset many of your "fellow" realtors®. Keep up the great work!! Professionals like you will come out of this real estate down turn for the better!!
No need to hide it. This is also meant FOR my "fellow" Realtors. Heck the listing agents should love it. All the other sites remove their name and number and replace it with a cheesy Realtor photo. Everyone thinks they are the listing agent, when actually they haven't got a clue about the property.
I found your site the other day and absolutely love it! Your basic info and large pictures on the photos & details page is great!! The list of how many pictures are available to view with each property. This is a nice feature, I could stay on the main page and scroll through the pictures without having to open a new page.
I love the pictures, size is great, you don't have to go to another page to actually see it! And as I said earlier I loved that you listed the lot of pictures that are available for each house and again can stay on the mainpage to see them, it is excellent, this is where the site really kills the competition! Pictures are so important in the house search, why would you only list one?
Couple suggestions - Please add sq. ft. of the house (currently you have lot, which is fine, but I am more intersted in the house) Also, have you seen on long and foster how they have a map view, it shows where the house you clicked is and then nearby houses for sale, that is a nice feature.
I really like the spreadsheet. I think the contact info. to the listing agent will be very helpful. I usually have to really search for that, and it's probably the most annoying non-feature of public search sites.
Of course one of the best parts of your search is the ability to keyword search the comments. Let's hope it encourages some realtors to brush up on their spelling skills. :-)
I think the full listing looks *great*. I know I'll be using the site. I have always disliked calling my real estate agent for the full listing when I need more information.
Hey Frank, I have been hooked on your philosophy for months now. When I read your blog, I feel like you are writing my own words...great job!!! Very cool concept with the wiki.
Frank, I've flagged this post for a feature. Your innovative solution for easy MLS searches and Wiki MLS should really take off (if judged by some of the consumer comments here). I plan to get more active on the site as well.
Wiki Wiki Wiki! Frank, I too had gotten tired of your annoying face on every listing so I'm glad this has been launched. >:-)
The idea is certainly innovative and I wish we had something similar in South Florida. It's disappointing to visit a home that doesn't match the pictures or description. At the same time, there are a few homes that shine more than their MLS listings. It would be great to have comments. Any plans to expand geographically?
Thanks. I hope to get some competition going. Eventually only the top 10 contributors will make the front page.
Also this isn't like Rotisserie chicken, where you set it and forget it. If the homes sell, your points go away, so you gotta keep on top and keep posting!
I hope you will also tell other people in your office. Maybe I can figure out a referral point system too. Remember this ultimately is to help us all save hours. If another agents posts and saves you a trip to Vienna, you will be thrilled!
I love the site. I've been telling all my friends about it. I found a bank owned house in Dumfries, made an offer and the bank accepted and will hopefully close this month. Thank you. I am a techie and have been using Google since its inception. When I tell my friends about the site, I compare it to Google, clean, no fancy useless features, fast, and just useful content.
The goal was to make my perfect KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) site if cost was no object and profit was NOT the goal. What would it look like?
I was personally sick and tired of fancy sites, confusing branding and sometimes NO PHOTOS. So I took the "If you build it, they will come" and combined that with "Make something you love and money will come later."
I guess I can make money just like every other buyer agent on the site. I can contribute and add photo albums and maybe somebody looking to buy a place that I have reviewed with a photo album, will be more inclined to use me.
Innovation isn't always led by money.....sometimes a great idea comes along, is implemented, then the money comes. In all fairness, this is still beta in the grand scheme. If it works out, who knows what investor will step in. I remember when Yahoo! was this little place to get an email address...
I will be watching this site because if it pans out, I'd like to see it functioning in my area.
This is a great way for good agents to work together for the good of their clients and the public in general. I love being able to use photos I take when showing houses for more than just the clients I'm with. This is a win-win site for agents and for users who are looking for a house.
Frank, this is so cutting edge! I will be adding a couple dozen listings of photos this week. yes it helps buyers a lot and it helps sellers who hired data entry agents instead of listing agents. The facebook application is great-- you can have your friends looking for a home for you and sending you listings if you're the buyer. Incredible.
Real estate 2.0 is who consumers get the best service; it's that simple.
This has been fantastic! I've been able to use the site before it officially got released to the market. I've been out house hunting with clients, and have been able to look up information on properties from my phone. My clients are impressed and appreciative. And I think the Comments that Buyer Agents can post will become a huge resource for buyers to gain additional information on properties, all from a click of a button. And now the lazy agents that don't take pictures of their listing are really going to look bad, when a proactive Agents who are taking photos for their clients upload an album for the public to view. Hopefully Buyers will see those Agents that go many steps above and beyond other Agents will choose them as their Realtor. There is nothing else out there like this, and it's going to be so helpful Buyers, Agents and even Sellers when choosing their listing agent. Congratulations Frank!!
Wow, this is quite amazing. Congrats! I am interested to see how this pans out and if it will catch on. I think it's an excellent product and a very unique approach.
I wanted to wish you luck. I just got in from meetings and don't have time to study it more closely at the moment, but I didn't want to pass by without wishing you the best with this venture.
This is awsome! I love it! I am just a real estate photographer (love the bigger high resolution photos!), not an agent, but I do look at my area's new listings everyday; cant' wait until it spreads to SE Idaho...(in about 15 years)!
Do we need this? No. But I wish I had it in South Florida. I'd be willing to take a few minutes out of my day if it helped in providing my clients with unparalleled customer service.
Thanks for the link love Frank. We have had no problems with getting feedback on our site and we have had no opposition from our clients with the format of the site. I have been using the franklymls wiki whenever I am in the car. I have a blackberry and once I get the browser open, your site is lightning fast. I will continue to contribute what I can to the site.
I tell you what excited me (after the basic idea) was all of the consumer comments.
Now, as to the WikiMLS... it rocks. While we only have two MLSs here in Atlanta, and they cover much of the same ground, and most properties are listed on both... The info still has holes and we have to search both to be sure that we get everything. And both interfaces blow...
While I like comments that say that they like it, I am particularly interested in negative comments like yours.
While Tchaka says that it is in part a way to give better service, I contend that is SAVES HOURS.
Think about for a second before poo-pooing it
1) Do you take Buyer Agent Photo Albums? If not, do you EVER have to show a property a 2nd and 3rd time? I virtually never have to. I take 40 photos in under a few minutes, and I upload them and the link in under a minute. HOURS are saved from this.
2) So imagine that your client wants to go see 3 foreclosures since there are no photos. And suppose a buyer agent was kind enough to share their photos. That could save you a 2 hour trip!
I agree with you, we don't need more things to add to our todo list that take MORE time. The entire point was the hours that it saves.
I've come to very much respect your forward thinking approach to real estate. This is nothing short of a perfect example of what the buyer is looking for. Honest photos of the property to help them wade through the overwhelming number of homes on the market.
I know that you've done a ton of work on the legality of the project and I am sure many are thankful for your benevolent and open access to this project.
Hopefully this will stimulate Listing Agents to put better photos on their listings to serve the seller-clients that have hired them to sell the home.
I can't wait to see how this evolves and what you come up with next!
Thanks for the initiative in crafting a well-intentioned and useful site. With all the junk on the web, finding something like FranklyMLS can be refreshing. You need to get a story in the Post or the WSJ or NYT -- and then the advertisers will flow and Frank will do whatever Frank wants.
It reminds of Travel advisor - you have a Hotel thats advertised........someone stays there - writes a review of the pro's and cons.........adds photos - good and bad.......and leaves therir contact info. Later when I'm planning on where to stay - I read the reviews........and sometimes contact the reviewers before I call the hotel..........it saves so much time and disappointment..........and also sells you onto other places even better then the 'originating' website!
As An IT person, I can see that this will definitely be something that will grow and expand with time!
One suggestion I have though, in the rules section, I would probably add "No self adverising, or adding photos not of the house (such as image files that are an adverisement, or that have the agents # or name on the photo of the property.) That is something that could get out of hand quickly as the system is used more and more.
Frank what are the 'legal' implications of Buyer's Agents taking photos of a Customer's house without their permission. The listing agent, I assume has permission. How do the Vendor's feel about having their homes photographed like this? What about Privacy Issues and Security Issues? Just curious.......I mentioned early that 'thats' what I like about sites Trip Advisor.....but .....this seems a bit more invasive - or do you feel a person's house becomes a 'public domain' the minute its listed? smiles
Great question. Was waiting for it sooner or later.
First of all, there are legal implications for everything, especially in real estate. Did you know that a buyer agent was sued for giving feedback to a listing agent? Yep, it ticked off the sellers, made them hold out for $10,000 more and they told the buyer after closing. The buyer sued their buyer agent. So #1, you have to make sure your client's well being is protected. Don't post comments about a place until your client has passed on it.
As for privacy, the website policy is to only upload photos of VACANT homes and exteriors of lived in homes.
So with a Vacant house and 100+ Realtors and clients, none of which have ANY background checks (not even agents in Va) coming through, is the expectation of privacy lost? I believe it is, but you would have to consult with your own lawyer or broker to see what they decide.
I feel that the buyers should finally have a say in this matter and have an agent looking out for them. This wiki format is inevitable. I guarantee you in 5-10 years, this will be commonplace. Otherwise the MLS will become obsolete and consumers will turn more and more to MLS alternatives that are able to do just this. And as we know, those alternatives just sell the leads back to us.
We just have to all be respectful and do it the right way.
Thanks Frank for getting back to me on that one so quickly.....So tell me did the Buyers win their Suit? :-)
That would be an interesting 'disclosure'......don't post comments unless the Buyer has approved them? Hmmm what about our own comments? You know........the 'discerning' eye of the Realtor - I'm thinking in most cases it will primarily be 'our educated' opinion...plus we're holding the camera.
I'm also wondering if you've had legal advice for yourself...with respect to this?.. All that aside, I believe your 'wiki' format is fantastic....cutting edge... da da da....you know...and human nature is to be sceptical....or at least for the left side of the brain to be! Thanks! :-)
Is there any plan to make this Wiki MLS open source? Is there a place / blog / website I can go to get more implementation details on this Wiki MLS?
How are records (properties) imported to the database? Frequency of update? From multiple MLSs in the region? In California where I am, the MLS I have access to is for Central Valley and I have to sign up to another MLS to get Silicon Valley property info, etc.
I love this site. Not sure how I stumbled upon it, but it's all I use now that I'm in the market for a house. I do have two suggestions however:
1) It would be nice to be able to export the spreadsheet view into Excel.
2) While Google maps are much better than Yahoo or Mapquest, I find MS Live Search maps better than Google. The Bird's Eye view of Live Search is far superior to Google's satellite view, which is often limited in it's resolution.
I also appreciate your site. One possible addition is to be able to sortlist by date of price changes (I use this feature on Trulia to watch the market)
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I am officially launching FranklyMLS.com, the World's First Wiki MLS! 
Every buyer agent with an ounce of techie-ness should be taking 
several otherwise competing agents come together to give what the customer wants... MORE INFO and PHOTOS. 
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