I’ve written a lot about Virginia short sales (don’t miss the older “SS 101” post) and a year and a half ago came up with the 1st MLS search that would scrub short sales (see post) and put a * next to their price (it would look at both the remarks and checkboxes).

But that wasn’t enough. I also gave some guidance on a “Top 10″ questions to ask a listing agent, as they are the key to getting short sales closed (in my opinion).

The most important question on that list was “have you ever closed a short sale.”

Well now you no longer need to ask them! (and they so frequently get offended)

FranklyMLS.com will upgrade the normal asterisk next to a short sale and make it two green **, IF that agent has EVER closed a short sale within the last 4 years. Yep, the system will now look at every short sale, and then scrub the 4 year history of the listing agent and if their sold listings show a successful short sale… then BOOM, they get upgraded.

Now of course this is FAR from perfect and in no way is it an indication the short sale will definitely close (far from it), but I’d venture to say you have a 3x better chance. So in a quick second, a glance at the results might help you consider a short sale that before you might have been too scared to try.

Try it. Search for Arlington Short Sale.
About 40% have **.

Now, I’m still willing to tweak this. Should it require 2 closed short sales? Also I think it currently looks at whether the agent was either a lister or a buyer agent. I’ll be changing that to just successful sold short sale listings.

Also the system puts 1 green * if the remarks say “Approved” since an approved short sale has a better chance of closing.

Why am I so excited about this? Because it is my first attempt to incorporate sold data as an indicator or predictor about how an active listing will do. Next up is the Frankly Price Predictor that I talk about here for Inman News (I do a weekly video column for them now):

A few quick personal notes:
- All done with my 5 AU Law school exams, only a year and a half left.
- Just finished a shoot for HGTV’s “My First Place,” which you would have seen some behind-the-scenes videos like this one if you followed me on Twitter @FranklyRealty
- Was listed as a “Inman 50 Most Influential Online”
- I started a couple new Youtube accounts at Youtube.com/FranklyNews for my weekly Inman.com industry focused video segments and Youtube.com/LakeBarcroftcom (and snagged LakeBarcroft.com from a squatter), which is where we recently bought a home.

Written by Frank, Owner FranklyRealty.com and FranklyMLS.com

Photo by dichohecho

I “lost” both categories. I really wasn’t too bumbed. I was thrilled to be a finalist and I love the winner’s blog phoenixrealestateguy.com.

But then the overall “Innovator of the Year” award was announced. This category did not disclose the finalist and previously did not include finalists from the other categories.

“Drum Roll” (no really they said that)… Shit! I won. I know it ain’t th e Oscars but it felt like it for a moment. Wow, they really like me.

So, I ran up. Didn’t say a word. Was in shock. Thinking “Do I say something witty or innovative?” Nah.

(side-note: Being so “innovative” and “green” oriented I refused the registration gift bag and 20 page glossy schedule and I stuck with the online schedule to save trees. Anyhow, the online schedule slatted the awards for 11am. The print version apparently said 9:15. For once in my life, I was very early.)

I even temporarily changed one of my cards to “I’m kinda a big-ger deal.”

But the ego bubble settled once out in the hall when a tourist saw the cute trophy and was like “What is an IN MON?” And my wife saw the first video (without the panning audience photo) of me accepting the award and thought only 20 people were in attendance (vs. 1500). Watch the video…

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Thanks Ray from VideosByAddress.com for the impromptu video.)

And then I sent out an “anybody wanna do a lunch” on twitter and got no reply. So, that helped bring me back down.

Anyhow, for the acceptance speech I never did…

Thank you Inman News (see article) for checking out my little ole company and really understanding what we do differently, or shall I say “innovatively.” I’d also like to thank my agent Lindsay for saying “why don’t you write all this stuff you tell us and share it with everybody”, blogger Ardell in Seattle for some early on motivation and inspiration, Ben Martin from VAR, and my georgeous wife for dealing with my 3am posts.

Make sure you subscribe to upcoming posts. I have about 6 more posts that I wrote while on a 38 hour flight to Africa with my wife. In the meantime here is a random Wheel Estate Cam on location in Africa with elephants.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Written by Frank Borges LL0SA- Broker FranklyRealty.com

PS. I’m on the ballot for the NVAR’s 2010 Board of Directors. Voting is for NVAR Realtors only and through Oct 8th 2009. Please  Vote today (or tell your NVAR Realtor to vote) and spread the word in your Realtor office. For more details hit up www.ChooseFrank.org

pss. Now it is even easier to subscribe to this blog. Just add a small comment below and check the box to get emailed future posts. Spam free.

1) Realtors. Tomorrow (Friday) June 19th 09 at 12-2pm at NVAR Herndon

2) For those of you that read this blog through your email reader, make sure to swing by and check out the new layout http://Blog.FranklyRealty.com

We now sell Trust Me I’m A Realtor shirts that you can give your loved ones (as featured last week in the Wash Post).

3) We received two, yes two, Inman Innovation Award Finalist Nominations. One for the Most Innovative Blog (this one) and one for Most Innovative Web Service for the just turned two,  FranklyMLS.com, now with almost 90,000 added buyer agent photos.

Don’t miss out on the more frequently posted videos on Youtube.FranklyRealty.com.

Written by Frank Borges LL0SA- Broker FranklyRealty.com

They are the best deal in town, by far. More so than bank deals. But if you don’t read this carefully you will be FORKED!

In case you are new to the world of home shopping, there is something called a Short Sale. You need to read the details on my post: Short Sales Are “Fake Listings.” Only 5% Close!

But the 1 liner explanation is this: A distressed seller facing foreclosure tries to get the bank eat the losses and allow a “short sale” thereby selling the home for 10-20% below market and the bank eats the $50k to $250k loss instead of the bank losing even more money in foreclosure.

The problem was that only 1 in 20 were closing. Read the post above to learn why, but it had to do with clueless listing agents (many still exist) and banks having 1 processor for 600 homes.

Quick Tip:
REOS/ Bank Owned MLS Listings are 7-12% below market
Short Sales MLS Listings are 12-20% below market.
Do you get why this is important? See Wheel Estate Cam Video

1 YEAR AGO
Everyone wanted a Short Sale. They seemed too good to be true… well they were. Then came horror stories of people waiting 4 months and then the bank saying “sorry we changed our mind” and leaving people homeless (they already sold their home!).

6-9 MONTHS AGO
Nobody wanted Short Sales. The pendulum swung too far in the other direction. “Hell no, I’m staying clear of Short Sales, they are fake!”

NOW?
Be Smart. Weed out & Pounce on the Good.

Well the time has come to putting our thinking caps back on. You have to learn how to spot a “bad” short sale and how to know if a short sale is “real.”

Bad short sales still have a 1 in 10 chance of closing (up from 1 in 20).
But a “Good” short sale can have a 80% chance of closing!!!

NUMBERS OF SHORT SALES CLOSING
In my post over a year ago only 3 short sales had closed in all of Arlington in a year out of many dozens of failures. In the last 4 months 3-4 have closed in my building alone (Clarendon 1021)!

Inventory levels
Short sale inventory can vary greatly by each area. Sometimes the “hotter” areas will be so infrequent that a Short Sale might not be an option (keep reading to learn about offers on Under contract Short sales!!! shhhh). Also if you have a good agent (insert plug here for me), for condos, consider asking management about upcoming delinquent condo units.

NEW TRENDS FOR SELLERS/ Listing Agents

1) Undisclosed Short Sales
SS got such a bad wrap that agents stopped putting “Short Sale” in the public remarks. Some even removed them from the Realtor-only remarks. How is that allowed? Something about privacy, and the rights of the seller. And who cares about the buyer anyhow, right?

If it has a crazy low price, like 30-50% off assessment … and it is NOT a bank owned property, it is likely a short sale. (only FranklyMLS.com lets you sort by tax
assessment as a ratio of list price, try it, it is the #1 best tool for bargain hunters, see video)

Sidenote: Undisclosed Bank Properties. This really blows my mind. More and more I am seeing REO and bank owned properties (after foreclosure) that do NOT say “bank” anywhere in the public remarks. Maybe people are getting scared of bank properties too? See video of me skiing a black diamond while talking about banks.

2) “Approved Short Sales”
These can be pretty good. This oftentimes is an experienced agent that has already done the 1-3 month processing and has an “ok” from a bank and a set price. You can sign up for alerts on FranklyMLS for the phrase Approved Short Sale Virginia these can be good, but they go FAST. Note that 50% are under contract.

3) 3rd Party Short Sale Negotiators for sellers

This is a brilliant idea. Non-Realtors that are hired to negotiate short sales for the listing agent. I spoke with one company today. Their team comes from former bank loss mitigators. So they know all the ins and outs. They closed 60 last month! They know exactly what each bank needs, to the “T”.  Sure they cost about 1%, but who cares? If they can double your chances for closing a place, and for 20% under market AND make sure the seller doesn’t get stuck with a note of deficiency judgment… well worth it.

OLD TRICKS/TRENDS BY Listing Agents
1) Way Underpriced/Fake Short Sales. Recently one of my buyers found a $2.5M home that was listed for $700,000. Real or fake?

2) Clueless Agents. I am a 3 year member of the NVAR education committee. We are trying our best to get more free education out there for Realtors to list these properties.

NEW TRICKS FOR BUYERS
1) Offer on “Under Contract” short sales.
This is interesting. Do not skip this, you will be quized.

There is a huge Realtor debate on what it mean to be “Under Contract” with a short sale. Even though I got an “A” in my Contracts class in law school last semester, I am not a lawyer, and I am not giving you legal advice.

MRIS (the local MLS provider) has rules that you must put a listing as “Under Contract” when the seller signs the offer from the buyer (and then most people ignore the listing, but not us! & readers of Blog.FranklyRealty.com (make sure you subscribe, do it now, I’ll wait) ).

However some listing agents would prefer to keep it as active so they can get more offers. Obviously this ticks off the buyers.

On my previous short sale post I covered advice directly from the legal department at VAR. It talks about signing it “contingent upon 3rd party approval” versus “Acceptance upon 3rd party approval.” A night and day difference. One is under contract, one is not.

But regardless, the seller would sign anything. They would sign an offer for $100. They don’t care. They are having the bank eat $100,000+.

So my point is, something might be “Under Contract” for a long time, but if the bank doesn’t sign it, it means nothing. So why not offer on homes that have already sat for 30 days and are about to be considered by the bank (takes the bank at least 30 days to hire an appraiser/BPO, review the paperwork.)

Example:
Sold Market Price Home A: $500,000 (recently sold unit)
Short Sale Home B: $400,000 which is “Under Contract”
Active Regular Home B: $490,000

Offer $410,000 or $420,000 (note it takes hours for us to come to a real price based on FranklyCRA, and tons of other data, but play along here) for the place a month after it goes under contract.

Technically it would be a “bank up offer” but the bank would see both offers (in some/many cases) and reject the initial offer (which is signed by the seller) and take the 2nd offer that is $10-20k higher thus saving you $70k vs the next “regular” listing.

I go more into this over on my Realtor to Realtor Active Rain post where short sellers debate the concept. Anybody Offering on “Under Contract” Short Sales?

2) Short Sale Negotiators FOR BUYERS!

Make sure you read above about how these new companies help listing agents. But I think they should help buyers. I plan to use them, I will let you know how it goes. The next offer I put in, I will require in the offer that WE pay* for this 3rd party company to take over the negotiations. Sure we’ll stick around if professionals are running the show. They can get the deal done in 50% less time, and twice the closure rate. When I say “We” I refer to adding the 1% to the seller’s closing costs. This step could really turn around how short sales are viewed.

3) FINDING GOOD SHORT SALES
a) Spot them using the Short Sale Scrubber (tm). Only on FranklyMLS.com, when you search, if you see a * next to the price, that means the words “Short Sale” (or 3rd party approval, and it removes the * when it says “Not a short…”)

b) Look for a HIGH # of Photos. While not conclusive, a listing with over 5 photos is 4 times MORE likely to go to closing vs a 1 photo listing. Lazy agent tends to lead to failed short sales (not always).

c) Look for Listing Agents with Prior closed short sales. Have your Buyer Agent run a FranklyCRA and see if they have closed a short sale before. IF they have, your chances skyrocket.

d) Top 10 questions to ask a Short Sale.
This was featured in the Washington Post. Ask these questions before getting serious. If the agent can’t answer them, walk. Today I got a “It is none of your buyer’s business if my seller client is still paying the mortgage.” Oh, yeah, my client waiting 6 months because the bank keeps cashing the checks and has no reason to eat $200,000? Yeah right. We have the right to know, or we walk.

e) Short Sale Alerts on FranklyMLS.com
You can set up alerts for phrases like Short Sale Arlington. Our site updates every 90 minutes. Make sure your Realtor is high tech and can do all the contracts digitally (like I always say, dont be silly and try and use the listing agent, subscribe to my blog and soon you will learn why). Consider even offering at or above list sight unseen (that would take another full post to explain pros and cons).

f) Wiki, Wiki, Wiki. 61,000 Additional photos. Found NOWHERE ELSE!
Don’t forget, FranklyMLS.com is the first and only site in the USA that encourages buyer agents to add photos (see video howto) to photoless Short Sales.
ATTN READERS: Why don’t you help out too? You, or your agent, should be contributing photos.
Look at Jeff Royce’s contributions to photoless short sales. Every other site has 1 photo for 14 of these 17
homes. Because of Jeff, we have 300+!

Every other MLS site= 14 homes 14 photos (1 each)
FranklyMLS.com WIKI= 14 homes 350 photos.

Hours saved and money on gas to see a 1 photo short sale= Priceless!
Thanks Jeff from OurFairfax.com for being the #1 Contributor on FranklyMLS.com!

Sidenote for Agents: Ask me about getting a Free Branded IDX. Yep, FranklyMLS.com with your name on each page and email alerts.

FUTURE BUYER TRICKS: (sign up for the new features blog for FranklyMLS.com)

1) What do you think of a feature that would put a GREEN * next to a Short Sales listing if it is being performed by an agent that has previously closed a short sale? I think that would be killer, anybody else? (please add comments)

2) Hyper targeted email alerts for homes in an area by “great short sale agents” that have closed 2+ short sales in a year. These people know what they are doing, and you can get a steal. Currently this is not automated, so email me directly to sign up for your area.

3) What do you think about a feature that lets you “favorite” a short sale listing, and if it goes off the market, but comes back as a REO, you get an email alert? Also working on alerts for closed price. Anybody want to get an alert the day your Favorited home sells with the price, including subsidy?

The End.

So, sorry for the long post. It was 3 months coming. I feel relieved. Now I can point people to this post instead of spending an hour on a 1/4th as in depth email.

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog in the upper right corner of Blog.FranklyRealty.com and forward this to anybody considering buying short sales. Note every area of the country is DRASTICALLY different.

Written by Frank Borges LL0SA
Broker FranklyRealty.com
Owner FranklyMLS.com

Please report types.

Pendulum photo by Brandi666
Fork image by KevinDooley
Random Chair on Head by jawcey
Cat Pounce by Yogi
Back up truck by Wellohorld

PREVIOUS LIST OF FIRSTS:

1. First with Keyword search of remarks, subdivisions, zips, city, schools, agent name etc. (like Arlington bank owned)
2. First Wiki site. Over 1300 buyer agent reviews and photo albums. (details)
3. First with 4x larger mls photos. (example)
4. First to Scrub remarks for Short Sales adding a * (blog post)
5. First to Scrub remarks for Open Houses (since 50% of agents enter them wrong)
6. First with a cell phone mode (see video how-to, or see cell mode)
7. First to sort by Tax Assessment as % of List price. Bargains!
8. First to show both Days on The Market DOMM & relisted DOMP (what’s that?)
9. First with spreadsheet searching. (more data on 1 page)
10. First with password free email alerts.Video showing the latest features:

    Link to video

New round of FIRSTS:

1. First to incorporate both Google Streetview & MS Virtual Earth Aerialview on one page. Photoless listings come alive (see ex: 1, 2, 3)
2. First with Price history & Previously listed price history! (ex: 1, 2, 3) (so far not on all homes)
3. First with Open House history. See how often they have opens.
4. Now 80% faster! Fastest site out there.

Other new features:

1. New design. You voted for it, apprentice style.
2. Export the data to Excel
3. New Search syntax. Now you can search by

• Negatives. Remove words or areas you don’t want. Like: McLean -22102
• Bedrooms. Want only 2 bedrooms? Use 2bdr or you can remove 1 bedrooms with -1bdr
• Home Type. Add to your search: detached, condo, townhouse
• Phrases. Search for “bring all offers”
• Partial words. Use the *. Like: PW* for all MLS #s that start with PW. or: Water* for Waterfront and Waterview.
• Actives only? Add the word Active. Like Arlington Condo Active

So hope you enjoy the changes, hope you will offer some feedback. Coming up next… MLS sold data!

Agent Update: Ask about the Free-IDX for your blogs and free-branding. Also it is now easier to become a top contributor on the WIki MLSs. Just review about 10 homes and get free visitors to your site.

Written by Frank Borges LL0SA
Broker FranklyRealty.com
Owner FranklyMLS.com
twitter= franklyrealty

ps. Funny story, so my favorite post is my Frankly CRA post, so I decided to get the domain name www.franklycra.com , only to realize that it spells Frank Lycra. So don’t think it is a site with me wearing Lycra!

pss. If you have a friend looking to buy, have them try out FranklyMLS.com and for keyword sake: Frankly mls .

Watch the video example below. (email readers go here).

How do we know if it is a Short Sale? Since only 17% of Short Sale listing agents check off the “Short Sale” box under Current Financing, we also crawl the Public Remarks for the phrase “Short Sale” and “Party Approval”. (Soon we will unscrub those that say “Not a Short Sale” ie, no asterisk Update6-16-08, this is now complete).

Why do you want to know which are Short Sales? So you don’t get your hopes up. There has been much discontent amongst buyer agent Realtors, some even calling for a complete ban of Short Sale listings on the MLS since so many are “Fake Listings.” (but they are starting to close, more soon on this, so subscribe to this blog). But now that we give them an *, you can quickly see which are which.

If you see any inaccurate asterisks, or ones that should have an asterisk, please let us know, and enjoy!

- Written by Frank Borges LL0SA- Broker FranklyRealty.com

#1 What is the difference between DOM-M and DOM-P?

Both of these terms refer to Days on the Market for a house for sale.

DOM-M stands for Days on the Market-MLS. Or the number of days this exact MLS listing has been on the market (not the home, but the MLS#).

DOM-P stands for Days on the Market-Property (other states call it C-DOM Continuous Days on the Market). So regardless of the number of different Realtors, or same Realtor relisting, it shows the total number of days the property has been for sale. (A house has to be off the market for 90 days to reset to 0 DOMP see details on MRIS blog)

• I have found that the average MLS listed home in Northern Virginia drops 8% (including seller subsidy, see older post) from the real first MLS listed price (sorry, but no public MLS system shows the starting price if it was relisted).
• However a home that sells within the first 10 days sells for only 1% below list.

(sidenote: Some disagree, but I have found a strong correlation to DOM and % off list price. The longer it sits, the lower it goes. I even created something called the Frankly Price Predictor, where I give an estimated price for Active listings based on the Days on Market. Should I put that back on FranklyMLS?)

FranklyMLS.com is one of the only sites (out of 33, see all here) that will show you both the DOMM and DOMP (most show neither). See a sample search for Arlington Homes. We think it is important to have as much data for the consumer as possible.

Examples: Property has been 85 days with one Realtor, and then 10 days with another. That would show up as: DOMp/m= 95/10

Tricks: Where there is data, there are Realtor tricks (more here on MLS DOM fudging).

1. Fat-Free Fudge (ie legal). An agent relists their own property in order to reset the DOMM (but not DOMP). This is allowed. I don’t like it and it has a ton of drawbacks (like buyers that have your homes saved, suddenly think it is sold). Advantages: a) looking like a new listing for sites that don’t show DOMP b) The “Original price” is reset (only a few sites show this as well).
2. Full of Fat Fudge (illegal). An agent manipulates the tax data with ID # 00000 so that it resets the DOMM and DOMP. The fine for this was $50. After my expose’ was mentioned in BusinessWeek, the fine is now $1,000. Blogging for a purpose= Priceless

Where BUYER AGENTS, in Virginia and DC, from multiple brokerages come together to ADD information and photo albums to listings they visit. MORE DATA & 1,000+ MORE PHOTOS!

THE “OLD 1.0 WAY”: (see all 31 MLS search engines here)

1) One-Way Information. “Here are homes for sale, as marketed by the listing agent. Take it, trust it, or leave it.”

2) Photoless MLS Listings!

Sure they sell for $15,000 less but they are a pain for everyone. Oftentimes foreclosures or a listing by an underpaid or sucky agent have no photos!

3) Confusing Branding.

Who is selling what? Each of the 60,000 MLS listings are plastered with one “Brought to you by” buyer agent from one brokerage. I tried to explain: “No, I am not listing 1,298 homes,” but it isn’t the consumer’s fault, it is confusing! See my account on Homesdatabase.com/frankly a service that many agents pay $30 a month for. My annoying face on each listing.

4) Limited Data or Sign-In Required.

All but a few sites have stopped the practice of requiring users to create an account and login in order to see listings. Also many sites will NOT show you all the data possible. Some even hide the addresses so you have to “call your local trusted Realtor!”

5) Fancy, & Feature Filled, But SLOW-

Some of it might be useful, but it slows down the website. Their goal is to have such perfectly targeted results that it can take minutes to find something.

6) Small photos. As our monitor resolutions get higher, the images get smaller. On my screen most MLS sites show 4 inch photos.

7) Computer based. No focus on cell-phone ready searching.

The “NEW 2.0 WAY”: FranklyMLS.com

1) Wiki it!

(Attn Buyer Agents, do you have a progressive office? Let me come and talk at your Tuesday meeting so that more Buyer Agents can get involved.)

The World’s First Wiki MLS. No, we can not CHANGE the listing itself (or the price!) as presented by the listing agent. What we do is ADD comments and photos to the listing and as a community flag and remove inappropriate comments. Every buyer agent with an ounce of techie-ness should be taking Buyer Agent Photo Albums. What is that? Well, the listing agent takes photos for their sellers to put the house in one light, but the buyer agent takes photos for their clients in a more realistic light. Including shots of how far it might be from a highway, or showing bathroom water damage or a roach infested place (scroll to bottom of those listing to see the comments).

The goal is to add information, and not opinions. No “this house stinks” or “this house is great,” but instead factual information like “This house backs to Rt 66″ or “This house is listed at 44.6% lower than the purchase price in 2006.” Information not evident in the listing agent’s presentation. I wish everyone was like Loudoun agents Tony and Danilo with their Blogback blogging for feedback where they list the pros and cons of their listings and ask buyer agents to leave comments. How can you find the reviewed homes? When you do a search on FranklyMLS.com, homes with a YELLOW highlighter, those have the comments, see an example search for 1021 Clarendon.

2) 1,000 More Photos Than ALL other MLS sites.

So far, prelaunch, 10 buyer agents from 5 firms add photo albums with as many as 40 photos of 50 properties. With this, the database grows to thousands of extra photos. Consumers want PHOTOS,PHOTOS, PHOTOS and on our co-opetition website, several otherwise competing agents come together to give what the customer wants… MORE INFO and PHOTOS.

Sidenote: A year ago I bought a baseball glove from Amazon.com. It was photoless. After getting the glove, they asked if I would take a photo of it and post it on Amazon. That is what first gave me the idea for this Wiki MLS. (see post)

The site also has a point system. 1 point for comments, and 10 points for a photo album. For that, the contributor is listed underneath the listing instead of my mugshot on each listing (see above). They also get a front page link to their website. Why contact me as a buyer agent, if another agent has actually BEEN to the property, specializes in that area and has helped you get more information on it.

Buyer agents, her
e is a ”
how to add the photo albums.”

3) No branding, advertising, or logins required. Other than the required link from the site owner (me) at the bottom of each page, there is no advertising or cheesy recommended buyer agent next to each listing. Only when a buyer agent contributes to a listing with comments or a photo album, do they get a link to their site. Also, you should already have a buyer’s agent by the time you hit this site.

4) ALL MLS DATA(that is legally allowed to be shown) We show everything. Including BOTH the Days on the Market-M (MLS#) and Days on the Market- P (Property). Otherwise known as DOMM and DOMP We even show you the “within the industry ‘you must be nuts’“ listing agent’s name and number. Only 1 other site does that. Don’t worry agents, there is a disclaimer that says NOT to call the listing agent and why. So why have it? Well the consumer should ultimately decide.

What we can NOT legally show is: Realtor Remarks, Compensation amount (ask your agent if they take buyer agent bribes), Owner’s phone number, showing instructions and lockbox codes.

5) Not Fancy, just FAST.Except for photos of houses, there is not one graphic, icon, logo on the site. No Geewhiz, just speed. With that comes fewer features, but how many features do you see on Google or Craigslist? Just give me info fast, even if it isn’t 100% accurate (as in there might be a “madison manor” in both Arlington and Baltimore). FranklyMLS.com searches by keyword only. I know that looking at 400 homes can take a ton of time. The goal was to count each click and scroll in the home buying process and cut that time down by 80%.

1. “Sexy?” homes? Search the Realtor Public Remarks. Try it, search for “sexy.” Only a 3 of the 33 local MLS sites will let you search the Realtor Public Remarks as part of an advanced search. Some information in these remarks can’t be found in any drop down or checkbox search. For example: Lake Ridge Short Sales or Arlington Metro
2. Keyword search for ANYTHING.One box, search anything. Including, search by ZipCodes, subdivision name, school name (if the agent put it in), street name, street number, city, brokerage name, and even by agent name (nobody does that). It takes getting used to, but it works for Google and Craigslist, dso it works for FranklyMLS.com
3. Spreadsheet mode. Search like the Realtor’s back end system. Text only results to quickly find what you need. Also the columns show you in a quick second the List price, Original Starting price, Tax assessment and DOMp/m. (See link above)
4. Photos only mode. Just a page full of 50 medium sized images. For the quick glance.
5. Photos and Details mode with image rollover. Most sites that have this mode have useless 1 inch images. We show in this mode the 4 inch images that other sites use for their “full size.” Also you can use a rollover link to see all the other 2-30 images.

6) HUGE PHOTOS. Example. All the other sites use the 4 inch photos for each listing. Probably to leave room for mortgage calculators, frames, ads etc. We instead are the only ones that pull the high res 7 inch photos as the DEFAULT. Bigger is better.

7) Cell Phone Ready. Nobody offers this… for FREE.

With the former slogan, “So easy, a cellphone could use it,” the site wasn’t designed for the cellphone, but it is so simple that it still works great on most cell phones. I recommend the “photo mode.” This is perfect for when you are in front of a house and want to get the details. I suggest using the house # and the zipcode.

******

Other interesting features:

• FACEBOOK integration.We all have been asking ourselves if a useful tool for Facebook will come up. Well now there is one. You can “save” each listing into your Facebook account with 1 click. Then your friends can comment on what you have selected, or you can share them easily with loved ones.
• Super Short URLS. http://franklymls.com/FA6683625 for easy copy and pasting. (Update: we just dropped the .html) into an email for others to share. I’m obsessed with “easy.”
• Super Short Search Strings: www.franklymls.com/default.aspx?m=R&h=ALL&s=1021+Garfield (soon this will be even shorter). You can also bookmark the search string to quickly see all listings for that search.
• Find Similar Results: If you see a “more” or a “>>” click it to find similar homes or to see ALL the listings that a particular agent has (great for comparing listing agents!).
• Links to similar Craigslist FSBOs, and to Zillow for previous sale data.
• Link to that property on Google maps. Click on the “map” link.

So that pretty much wraps it up. I hope you have enjoy the site. I would love to get some feedback from current users (see Feedback $$ contest), local agents and others on how to improve the site.

- Written by Frank Borges LLosa-Broker/Owner FranklyRealty.com

Reviews of FranklyMLS.com, the new Wiki MLS (send me your review)

• A Stroke of Genius! The Epitome of Real Estate 2.0 By Matthew Rathbun Real Estate (VAR Educator of the Year)
• Broker launches ‘Wiki MLS’ site Inman News
  
• Clicking with Buyers The Washington Post
• Realtor Bloggers Make Headlines – Evolving Buyer Habits and FranklyMLS real/diaBlog
• Great Consumer MLS Site!