property search

[bleen18]

I was hired to design a site for a realtor in PA and he is VERY VERY resistant to the idea of having a property search on his site. He fears that users will:

a) be afraid ot use forms with dropdowns and/or checkboxes

b) be discouraged if they dont find many matches to their criteria. As it is now they must browse EVERY property in a specific category (i.e. residential land or "100k - 200k") and he believes that this drives interest. I have explained that I can display "almost matches" when not enough exact matches are found

Is there any data (specific or anicdotal) that I can point him to that shows the advantages of a search on a real estate site? Any help would be great. Is there an industry based award for sites? Perhaps showing him how the top10 all have a search may help...

--
Alex

[webmaster]

I can tell you now, with over 30 real estate sites under my belt and running one of the most successful real estate forums in the world that having access to an IDX / MLS solution is a MUST for a realtor or broker website. If you take a poll of successful real estate agents and ask "what do website visitors want to do most on a website" the highest response will be "search homes" I guarantee it.

[judyo]

I get many more surfers that register for my VOW than those that fill out any of my forms. My MLS requires registration so they have to do it if they want to see all properties available. Then I get their info, which includes a good e-mail address.

These are people that want to see actual MLS listings at their own pace and don't want to fill out home finder forms.

[bleen18]

I agree 100% ... but is there something I can point him to to support this? He thinks people would rather browse then search. Thoughts?

[bleen18]

judyo ... let me clearify. By "form" I meant a search form. Type of property; price range; location; # of bedrooms - they clisk search and 10 properties are displayed.

I don't mean for users to register or fill out a "contact form"

...also... what is VOW?

[judyo]

VOW is the only way to get every listing on the MLS. IDX only offers listings where brokers "opted in." IOW, for some searches a prospect might get only 2 listings using IDX vs. getting up to 20 through VOW.

Either way, some type of form does need to be filled out where a prospect enters their price, area, etc. The difference between IDX & VOW in my area is that they have to give their name & e-mail address for VOW. Then I get that info.

I get many people filling out my VOW registration on a daily basis. These prospects are now in my database. They can still get away with phony names & phone numbers, but I know their e-mail address is good.

Anyway, having a property search available is what prospects want from a web site. They don't always know the difference between IDX & VOW (although I spell it out on my site). On 3 of my sites I have the ability to share listings with other's using the same site provider. So I offer hundreds of listings for prospects to browse without having to fill out any kind of form.

But hundreds of listings spread out all over just won't give what the MLS offers, along with the better search capabilities. That might be interesting enough for an extremely casual browser, but someone getting closer to their home search wants more than random listings. They want to be able to search their area, price range, # of bedrooms, etc. And these are the prospects you want to catch.

[webmaster]

bleen,

You can code it so that they have the option to enter their search criteria and ALSO have a link that says something like "want to just browse, click here to view all listings"