I was interested in the possibility of adding a property search tool to a web site without having to pay the monthly fees. So far, I haven’t found a free option that covers RMLS, but I was curious again about the accuracy of the various tools available to consumers.
Here’s my search criteria:
- Zip: 97006
- Bedrooms: 2+
- Bathrooms: 2+
- Price: $150,000-$200,000
- Property Type: All Residential
Fairly narrow criteria just for testing purposes.
And now for the number of results across a few of my favorites:
- RMLS (the official count): 77
- Google Base: 61
- Roost: 79
- Cyberhomes: 36
- Zillow: 156
- Estately: 77
- Yahoo! Real Estate: 49
- Trulia: 51
So the clear winner for accuracy is Estately. Their search tool is great and a pleasure to use too. Roost is very close, which makes sense too since they have IDX access as well. Zillow wouldn’t let me deselect foreclosure, so that may be part of why their number is so high.
My big surprise, however, was with Google Base. Again, I was looking for a tool to integrate for free into a web site, since so many are on aggressive budgets these days. This seems like the only tool that might be able to be integrated into a site for free without using an ugly iframe solution. Based on counts at least, Google Base appears to be fairly accurate which means this could be a good free property search option for someone willing to integrate it into their site.
Related posts:
{ 2 comments }
Hiya Nick…
I’ve made this my mission for the last couple of months, since Homequest has decidedly put an IDX feed (available independant of their blog app) on the back burner. I used the Cyberhomes “free” feed, but as you state, it uses an ugly i-frame. So not being able to find a free service I was happy with, I decided to start researching cheap.
What I’ve got in the works is a feed from Graphical Data, http://www.graphicaldata.com . It’s a $100 set up, $50/month, and you get lots of tools like email campaign, auto-email, visitor registration, school & neighborhood reports, and more. Once I have mine up and running I’ll share a quick review with you (and your readers).
michelle’s last blog post..Help for Homeowners
That’s awesome, I’m checking it out now. It’s not significantly less than Diverse Solutions, who I think has the best embeddable IDX system so far. I look forward to your review!
Comments on this entry are closed.