Over eighty per­cent of all home buy­ers start their search on the Internet.

But they can’t search the MLS.

What those internet-browsing home buy­ers can NOT do is “Search the MLS”. There are thou­sands of real estate web­sites that tell you to “Search the MLS” but, unless you are a mem­ber of a Mul­ti­ple List­ing Ser­vice, you sim­ply can’t. Even those real estate com­pa­nies with MLS in their name can’t give the con­sumer access to the members-only MLS sites. This is the web­site of the North­west Mul­ti­ple List­ing Ser­vice — NWMLS. Mem­bers Only.

So, what exactly are you look­ing at when you search for homes on line? What you CAN find on mil­lions of real estate sites is the “con­sumer ver­sion” of MLS list­ings. The con­tent is made avail­able via one of the local MLS via some­thing called IDX — Inter­net Data Exchange. The con­sumer or pub­lic con­tent of the NWMLS is avail­able at all Seat­tle area real estate com­pa­nies. Even the NWMLS has its own pub­lic web­site where the pub­lic can search for real estate.

Pri­vacy Pro­tec­tion, Time­li­ness, Detail

So, what’s the dif­fer­ence between the con­tent of the members-only MLS sites and the pub­lic ver­sion of these sites? Three main dif­fer­ences: pro­tec­tion of pri­vacy, time­li­ness and detail. Con­fi­den­tial­ity: name and con­tact infor­ma­tion of seller are not revealed. Time­li­ness: homes listed as for sale have been sold. Detail: even the best pub­lic search sites can’t match the MLS search criteria.

So, why do so many pub­lic real estate web­sites say: “Search the MLS”? Some don’t know any bet­ter. Or they do so because they want you to think you can. They pre­tend to give you a com­pet­i­tive edge. They are mis­lead­ing you. It’s called lying.