Remember the old days when insiders with a friend in real estate got to borrow THE BOOK, the MLS book that is, overnight? It was great. Pictures and descriptions of every home in town. And THE BOOK was published every week. Cut down lots of trees in those days. Then THE BOOK went electronic on us. And now the Internet makes the computerized version of MLS obsolete. Right? Was that a yes?

I believe that the first monster site to list 1,000,000 homes on the web was Realtor.com, established by the National Association of Realtors. Or should I say authorized by NAR. It's now up to 1.3 million listings. But competition for your hearts and souls has been fierce and there are now several monster sites.

The beauty of all these sites is that you can search for your home without a human being to help/bug you. So I thought that as a public service I'd review the monster sites, and others, in one of my scientific surveys to find for you THE most efficient listing site on the internet. Then you're on your own. For you analyticals, a survey qualifies as scientific if I can complete it within the time it takes to sip two glasses of Merlot.

Today: April 27, 2000. The search: all listings in San Francisco and in Tiburon [in Marin County, just north of my Sausalito office].

Realtor.com

We Realtors are by definition members of the National Association of Realtors. That trade association contracted with e-folk to permit the use of its name in the development of a website which theoretically should be the mother of all listing sites. In my status of lowly Realtor I do not know how much input NAR has on this site, nor its percentage of ownership. Until I learn otherwise, I consider Realtor.com as THEM, as e-folk - not US, Realtors.

Realtor.com developed a "Gold Alliance Program" by which participating local Multiple Listing Systems are offered a premium in the profits earned by Realtor.com in return for their agreement to not share their listings with any other national site - such as HomeSeekers and HomeAdvisor, below. So I would be surprised to find any national site with more listings than Realtor.com. I've seen estimates that as many as 135 out of 700 local MLS associations signed the exclusivity agreement. As part of this essay I used to ask rhetorically whether this Program was pro or anti consumer. This week the Department of Justice has asked the same question. Stay tuned.

Today's totals: SanFrancisco, 600 single family homes and condominiums; Marin County, 471, of which 37 are in Tiburon.
I put down my glass of wine when I saw this - because there are only 28 Active listings in Tiburon this afternoon! It turns out that Realtor.com had 25 of the 28 listings, which is excellent. But it also had 12 pending listings and one sold listing.

Let me say a couple of things about these monster sites. Many listings do not include pictures. Many listings do not include addresses. Are you fussy about what the home looks like and where it is? In addition, the data is not based in real time. How often would you think that the San Francisco and Marin MLS databases are downloaded by Realtor.com? Would you believe that no one knows for sure. The best guess is once a week. So you're getting 70-80% of the database, as much as a week old. This is as good as it gets, online.

SFRealtors.com

This is our own San Francisco MLS! You would think that this site would be loaded with San Francisco listings. Since one can only search by subdistrict I cannot provide a total because I would be up all night. Amazing.

iOwn.com

The tag line on this monster site is "The Best Loans Online." So I think of it as a mortgage site which includes home listings. The sources for these listings include MLS associations, regional data collectors, print publishers such as Homes and Land, individual real estate brokerages, and FSBO (see below) sites.

I think it is fair to generalize that MLS associations do the best job of keeping the data current. In other words, an Active Listing is indeed an Active Listing. iOwn indicates the source of each listing. So keep in mind that sources other than MLS may not be diligent in keeping their inventory current. Here goes:

San Francisco, 199; Tiburon, 7.

HomeSeekers.com

Coming to you from Reno, Nevada, this site downloads 15 matches at a time.
Totals: San Francisco 169; Tiburon, 40. As with Realtor.com, this site must be carrying quite a few Pending/Sold listings in Tiburon. I have nothing against Reno. I just don't have much more to add.

houseandhome.msn.com

This is the Microsoft entry into the world of real state. Search is more tedious than sites above. On the positive side matches are displayed in a single list, one home per line.
Totals: San Francisco 43. Unable to search by "Tiburon" or by "Marin". Indeed, searches are by state, region and neighborhood. City is not in the lexicon/mix.

Then there's the world of the FSBO - For Sale By Owners.

These are sellers who choose to sell their homes on their own. Many will cooperate with the buyers' brokers - meaning that they will agree to pay his/her commission. In general these folks are tough. They tend to overprice their homes. And, if they do save on real estate commissions, it is not probable that you, the buyer, will be the beneficiary of their largesse - that they will share the savings with you. If you choose to not have a broker represent you, at least consult with a real estate attorney.

There are internet sites where such sellers can list their homes. All but one are very small. In addition, there is no Association to rap the seller's knuckles if the seller fails to remove the listing once an offer has been accepted.

Owners.com (Probably the largest FSBO site.)

Totals: San Francisco 21. Tiburon, 1.
It may be that this "flagship" of FSBO sites could have made it on its own but I interpret its recent (March, 2000) partnership with Prudential California Realty as confirmation that the FSBO concept is not viable in a stand-alone site.

4SalebyOwner.com

Totals: San Francisco, 2. Tiburon, 0.

FizboDepot.com

Totals: San Francisco, 0. Tiburon, 0.

ByOwnerOnline.com

Totals: San Francisco, 0. Tiburon, 0.

In the words of Linda Ellerbee, "And so it goes".

The largest collection of FSBO links, of which I am aware, is maintained by my virtual friend Becky Swann on her very extensive real estate site, IRED.com. I commend it to you.

I didn't forget you romantics who want to know what THE BOOK said.

This afternoon there were 787 homes listed on the San Francisco MLS system; and 28 Tiburon listings on the Marin MLS system. The two, complete lists could be faxed or emailed to you within minutes.

It is a sad commentary on the failure of the real estate profession to earn the confidence of consumers - who spend untold hours tediously searching the net for mere pieces of the puzzle when the entire puzzle is immediately available to them if they would just bite the bullet and elect to work with one of us.

   Leo