The Three Regionalized MLS Systems In West Michigan

In West Michigan there are three main MLS systems (Multiple Listing Service) that overlap somewhat that use three different technologies or database systems to manage their information. These systems cover an area that includes properties north of the Indiana border and approximately the eastern half of the upper peninsula of Michigan.

The MLS Exchange or The Grand Rapids MLS (GRAR)

The Grand Rapids Association of REALTORS MLS serves what's commonly known as the Grand Rapids Metro Area and includes all available listed properties in Kent, Barry, Ionia, and Montcalm Counties and parts of Allegan, Ottawa, Muskegon, and Newaygo Counties. Grand Rapids is the second largest Metro Area in Michigan after Detroit  and includes the cities of Walker and Kentwood. CIDM is a member of the GRAR MLS system so you get complete public access rights to the GRAR MLS database for free right from this page.

The Southwestern Michigan Regional MLS (SWMRIC)

The Southwestern Michigan Regional Information Center MLS is an alliance of smaller local Boards of REALTORS that all share the same MLS system. SWMRIC (Pronounced "Swim - Rick") includes all available listed properties in the following West Michigan counties: Ottawa, Allegan, Muskegon, Van Buren, Berrien, Kalamazoo, Cass, St Joseph, Eaton, Battle Creek, Branch, Calhoun, Jackson, Hillsdale, Lenawee, Oceana, Mason, Manistee, Newaygo, Mecosta, Lake, Osceola, and parts of Kent County. Metro areas include: Muskegon, Norton Shores, Holland, Kalamazoo, Portage, Battle Creek and Jackson. CIDM is a member of the SWMRIC MLS system through our membership in the West Central Association of REALTORS. So you get complete public access rights to the SWMRIC MLS database for free right from this page.

The Traverse Area MLS (TAAR)

The Traverse Area Association Of REALTORS MLS serves the five county Grand Traverse Area, which includes the Traverse City Metro Area, Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Antrim, Kalkaska, and Benzie Counties, and overlaps somewhat to bordering counties. I'm not a member of the TAAR MLS system so when you follow the link to the TAAR MLS database, TAAR's public search site will open in a new browser window or tab. TAAR allows me to enter listings into its MLS database on a listing by listing basis for a fee through a reciprocal access agreement. These fees are not included in any cost reduction packages promoted on this web site. However, you can still take advantage of one of our cost saving listing packages if your property is located in the TAAR MLS system coverage area, or if you'd like your property listed on TARR to give it more exposure to potential Buyers in the Traverse City Metro Area. The fees are modest and rarely add more than $100.00 to your total overall marketing cost, unless you're continually requesting changes to your listing data. So it's still a great value. For more information about listing your property on any other MLS systems in Michigan, E-mail Me or Call Me Toll Free at (800) 695-5474.

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Let me create a Free personal web site for you based on your search criteria that: Automatically updates itself with new or changed data in real time.   Allows you to save listings you're interested in to return to later.   Automatically alerts you by E-mail of changes to listings you're interested in (Such as price reductions) in real time. To take advantage of these time saving advanced features, E-mail Me or Call Me Toll Free at (800) 695-5474.

Each of these MLS systems overlap somewhat. So if for example you're primarily interested in properties from the City of Grand Rapids west to the Lake Michigan shoreline, you would want to search both the MLS Exchange and the Southwest Regional MLS to find all the currently available listings that meet your specific criteria. The reason for this is because not all REALTORS are members of all these boards so their listings don't appear on the MLS systems they don't participate in. CIDM is a member of GRAR and SWMRIC so our listings appear on both of them. However, if we're searching properties near the borders of any particular MLS system's primary coverage area, we always search in the bordering MLS system's primary coverage area too in order to insure we find all the available listings for any particular area at any given time from any MLS source. So, once you've determined the area(s) you're most interested in, you should use the MLS system that serves that particular area and also any MLS system that appears to overlap your primary area of interest too.

How to search for properties efficiently and effectively
With the advent of Web 2.0, the ability to search for properties available for sale on the Web has become considerably more difficult. (See the topic "About The Current Status Of Real Estate Brokerage And Web 2.0" on our home page) The idea behind Web 2.0 as it pertains to real estate is that by opening the gateway to real estate property data and information formerly only available to REALTORS and releasing it to the general public on the Web, both the general public and the real estate brokerage community will be served better, and the value of using a REALTOR to help with the real estate buying process will be greatly enhanced. In other words, Buyers and Sellers of real estate working with REALTORS get a lot more "bang" for their buck. Our experience so far however, is that opening the floodgates to all of this data is needlessly complicating the whole process of buying and selling real estate for both practitioners and the public.

First, Buyers and Sellers are increasingly weighing the costs of working with traditional real estate brokerage companies and instead choosing to try "going it alone" to save money before consulting with an experienced REALTOR.

Second, Buyers and Sellers who feel newly empowered with access to all of this information are unknowingly exposing themselves to enormous liability if they make innocent mistakes when conducting their own real estate transactions.

Third, as new real estate search portals come on line (almost daily now) the data being fed to them becomes increasingly fragmented. Meaning, you can't just pick any site and see all the real estate available for sale at any particular time, because none of the sites have all the data. So instead of searching just one or two sites to see all the properties available for sale, you now need to search fifty sites.

Forth, it's now impossible for REALTORS to keep all of the fragmented data in the system updated at every search portal in a timely manner, so if you're searching on a non-MLS site, much of the data you're looking at probably isn't up to date.

Finally, if you value your time and choose not to use the services of a REALTOR, whether or not you're actually saving any money is certainly subject to interpretation of what "saving money" really means. In other words, do the math before embarking on your money saving strategy. If because of our skill at negotiating real estate transactions we save you $10,000.00 on your next real estate purchase, do you really care if CIDM makes $3,500.00 in commission? You still save $6,500.00 over what you would have probably paid by going it alone and we actually make less for our trouble. Think about it.

The Advantages Of Using The MLS Systems To Search For Real Estate
There are many advantages to searching on the MLS vs. using real estate search portals. (Discussed below)

1. Your search results are "real time" data. Each MLS is updated the minute new data is uploaded to the database. So you're assured that the status of the data you're looking at in your search results is accurate, up to the minute data. This feature alone saves you a great deal of time by eliminating in real time, properties that really aren't available for sale because no one bothered to return to update the data when the property was sold or withdrawn from the market.

2. The different MLS systems all allow your REALTOR to setup automatic E-mail notifications or personalized web sites, that automatically update the status of any properties you're interested in based on your own search criteria.

3. The ability to save properties on your personal web site and narrow your search results to only the properties you're really interested in, and watch in real time for status changes. This feature is useful if you find properties you're really interested in but don't like the current terms or asking price for instance. You will be notified in real time if the active status of any listings you've saved changes so you can make decisions quickly on whether or not you'd like to make an offer on a particular property that's been updated to terms you consider more favorable.

4. No advertising. The MLS systems are funded and supported completely by membership fees paid monthly by REALTORS and affilate service companies like appraisers, title companies, home inspection services, etc. All REALTORS are automatically members of at least one MLS system through their membership in the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) and their regional real estate board. It should be noted however that an agent or broker can be a member of (NAR) and choose not to be a member of a regional board. This makes them a REALTOR without private MLS access. Also, if a brokerage company or real estate agent isn't a member of NAR then they aren't REALTORS. The term "REALTOR" is a NAR owned trademark that can only be used by dues paying members of NAR. The point is, brokerage companies or agents who are not REALTORS and are not members of a regionalized board of REALTORS, have no more access privilages to the MLS system then the general public does. So if you want access to all the advantages of using the MLS system, make sure the brokerage company or agent you're working with is a REALTOR who is also a member of a regionalzied "Board or Association of REALTORS."

5. Strict rules that are enforced with a vengence for member users of regional MLS systems.

In summary, the MLS systems are faster, more comprehensive and accurate then any thing else available on the internet and are leaps and bounds ahead of any real estate search portals you will find. The only disadvantage to using the MLS system is you will only find properties on it that are listed by its members. So you won't see any for sale by owner properties (FSBO) or properties listed by real estate brokerage companies and their associated agents who aren't paying members of a regionalized board of REALTORS. It should be noted however that over 85% of all properties sold each year are sold through being listed in at least one MLS system. And Based on our own experience, it appears that about 95% of all properties sold each year at least appear on an MLS system at some time in the marketing process even if they don't ultimately sell during the period of time they are listed in the MLS. However, these are usually properties that are over priced to begin with so we aren't necessarily interested in them anyway.

Realtor.com
All of the above MLS systems feed their data to Realtor.com every 12 to 24 hours or so. So if you want to search a large area of West Michigan, say from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids for instance and you want to save yourself a lot of time, it would be far more efficient to just search Realtor.com and forget about using the individual MLS systems until you've narrowed down where you're sure you want to be a little more. There are Five disadvantages to using Realtor.com rather than a particular regionalized MLS.

1. Realtor.com only carries a subset of the data available for any particular property listing so you only get the main features of the property in your search results.

2. Because each regional MLS has it's own feed to Realtor.com you will find lots of duplicated property listings in your search results. One for each MLS system that a particular propety is listed on. For example, CIDM is a member of three regionalized MLS systems and we have one property listing, listed in each MLS system in order to maximize its market exposure. That listing will appear in your Realtor.com search results three times, once for each MLS system it's listed in. This isn't a big problem if the criteria you're using to search for properties is pretty narrow. But if you're using wider criteria in your search it can be pretty annoying to have to sift through three different versions of each property you might be interested in to find the ones you want.

3. Realtor.com is not real time data. Meaning there's a lag time of at least 12 to 24 hours or more depending on the MLS system feeding it data. That means the search results you're looking at are always at least 12 to 24 hours older than what is really happening on the regionalized MLS systems. Plenty of time for a great real estate deal to be snatched up by someone else before you get to it.

4. Only properties listed with real estate agents who are members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) appear on Realtor.com. (REALTORS) Real estate agents and brokers who are not REALTORS and for sale by owner listings (FSBO) are not allowed.

5. Realtor.com is a contracted service run by an outside company on behalf of the National Association of Realtors. Therefore, they host a lot of ads to subsidize the cost of maintaining the site that you're forced to endure while you're using the site. The ads slow down searching quite a bit.

Real Estate Search Portals
Homes.com, Zillow, Trulia, Homeadvisor, Homeseekers, Househunt, Yahoo, Oodle, Googlebase, Homegain, etc. These sites are commonly refered to as real estate search portals. There are at least 30 - 50 medium to large ones and more coming on line all the time it seems. Most of them recieve their data feed from Realtor.com and REALTORS that are members of them. Most of them exist primarily to sell advertising to compainies wanting to get their products in front of potential home Buyers and Sellers. Some of them will try to get you to register so they can resell your information to REALTORS. We get tons of spam from every imaginable source each day offering to sell us Buyer and Seller leads scraped from these sites. Many of these sites offer real estate sellers the opportunity to list their property for sale without the assistance of a REALTOR so you will find for sale by owner properties (FSBO) mixed in with all the REALTOR listings. We do not recommend any of these sites for the following reasons:

1. 95% of the properties listed on them are already listed on Realtor.com and a regional MLS in the area where the propety is located.
2. The data is not as up to date because no one other than the site owners care about keeping it up to date.
3. After 10 years of allowing Sellers to list their own properties without a REALTOR there has been no change in the percentage of all properties sold each year with the assistance of a REALTOR. (About 85%)
4. The advice they offer is generic and confusing and offered at millions of other sites going on and offline daily.
5. All of them claim that they don't resell their users and vistors data but our E-mail inbox is proof that they do.
6. You can waste an incredible amount of time looking at properties that sold or were removed from the market months ago but no one ever bothered to return to update the data or remove the property from the database.
7. Did I mention no one cares?
8. No one cares.

We would recommend these sites to anyone who just likes looking at homes on the internet as a hobby. (Our advice; get a life) Or people that just like looking at their own home on the internet. Or people that are interested in how the latest flash technology works/looks in the hundreds of ads you are forced to endure at these sites.

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