So many Americans are unabashedly obsessed with scrolling through online home listings. Looking at houses during the pandemic became a hobby that many people incorporated into their daily routines. After all, what could be more fun than “fantasy scrolling” and picking out your dream house or apartment, regardless of cost or location.
Trust me, I get it. As a Realtor in Sarasota, I still get excited when I see a brand new waterfront listing hit the market on Siesta Key. And it’s not surprising we all like it so much, considering 97% of buyers use the internet in their home search before 88% of them start working with a real estate agent.
What most people don’t know is that your fantasy home search – whether purely for fun or because you’re seriously considering buying a home – is made possible by local broker marketplaces like Stellar MLS, of which the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee is a stakeholder.
Local broker marketplaces, while not as well-known as many of the real estate browsing websites, are what allow home data to reach consumers. These marketplaces, which we regularly refer to as our multiple listing service (MLS), are essentially databases of all the homes for sale in a given market. Each database often is the primary source of information for home search sites.
These marketplaces are a product of seller real estate agents putting their information in the MLS while buyer real estate agents come to the MLS with buyers for those homes.
The result? The most efficient, accurate and trusted information on properties in our two-county region.
And consumers on both sides of the home sale benefit.
When a seller lists a property with a listing broker in our local MLS, they get access to the largest pool of possible buyers that have been brought to the marketplace by buyer brokers. Sellers also save time and money by working with an established group of buyer brokers.
For buyers, they can work with any buyer broker to see ALL homes for sale in one place without hidden or extra costs. The very existence of a local MLS enables equitable access for consumers, including first-time homebuyers and low- or middle-income homebuyers and racially underrepresented groups.
I’ve been a Realtor for more than 14 years. I’ve been able to help people like Jean and Mike who were relocating from Minnesota and had issues searching and finding the type of property they wanted to live in. Through the information available to me though the local MLS, I was able to help them narrow down and find exactly what they were looking for.