For the last six months, by far the number one request I have had from clients are those looking for homes in some sort of distress. They are buying anyway and if they can snag a home below market value, why wouldn't they. Unfortunately, searching for these types of properties is imprecise.
At first, I would just come across then when I was searching for my client. Then, I started by looking for certain keywords like Foreclosure, HUD, and Bank. These produced some results but there has to be more out there than my searches are producing. When I inquired to the MLS how to find foreclosures more effeciently, they responded with a list of wildcard keywords to search for in the remarks field. Asked if they could have a link, add a field, or anything else to make search more efficent, they responded that every year that idea has been raised and voted down. So I gotta know, why in the world are we not able to search the MLS for foreclosures?
Truth be known, not every agent displays the appropriate lingo in their remarks to indicate that a home is in distress. Often, I can read a remark line and gather that it could be in trouble and occasionally able to verify if they uploaded the appropriate disclosures. However, some agents put in just enough information for the computer to accept the listing and never return. Others have mis-spellings which render the wildcard search absolutely useless. This doesn't even account for those agents who have not figured out which area to assign their listing to (the second most unreliable way to search for listings).
This is definately a case where the local MLS has completely missed it. A few months ago, I opined that there were quite a few outside companies that were trying to replace the MLS systems and this is one area where they are ahead. For a monthly fee, you can sign up for any number of websites which will provide for you the pre-foreclosures (listed and not), homes up for auction, and even the status of the file. I have clients coming to me sometimes that have more information than I do and I'm the local expert.
It wasn't until this year that the MLS allowed virtual tours and remarks to appear on the IDX feeds (which is what displays listings on the brokers websites). We also had a short-lived field that was titled "Single Family Attached" which no one used properly and it went away. Finally, we've seen the switch from stating the approximate square footage of a property to a range, to which makes sense to no one (I ran across a listing for a client that had a 1,200 sq. ft. size range!).
Change isn't easy but it is inevitable. If we are to remain the local experts and have a viable stake in this market going forward, we need all the tools available to us to work efficently. That includes giving us the ability to search for foreclosures.
Jonathan Osman
Charlotte NC Homes, Charlotte Real Estate
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