High tech, low service
If you are searching for homes online today, my best guess is that you want to be able to find all the available listings and might be especially interested in the newest listings that come on the market. Now, unless you are a licensed Charleston real estate agent and a member of the Charleston MLS, you can't directly access the Charleston MLS.
What you are able to search is called an Internet Data Exchange (IDX) which is a data feed from the MLS. But what do you think happens when the data feed doesn't update.
You're not going to be able to see the newest listings and that is exactly the problem that Diverse Solutions, my IDX provider has had on more than a few occasions.
Most recently, it was 14 days until Diverse Solutions was able to update the listing feed from the Charleston MLS.
That means that if you were searching for homes, you were not able to view any new listings or get any updated price reductions for half of the month. And for two days, there were no pictures available of any homes regardless how long they have been on the market.
I'm sure you want something better than that.
While both problems have finally been resolved, I'm sure that everyone searching for homes for sale in Charleston would rather be able to find all the available homes for sale and have access to the latest information than to have a really cool search screen with all the latest technological bells and whistles.
Now, please understand that nothing runs perfectly all the time and there are always going to be glitches. But it's how a company deals with those glitches that determines whether you want to continue to do business with them or look elsewhere.
And unfortunately, despite the great bells and whistles offered by Diverse Solutions with their map search technology, they just don't get it when it comes to customer service.
If you send an email, you get an automated response saying that your email has been received and they will respond by the end of the next business day. Call on the phone and the best you'll get is voice mail.
That's not good enough.
So, my apologies to those who have enjoyed the search capabilities offered on my website but look for it to be replaced with a gateway search available directly from the Charleston MLS provider, Solid Earth. While it isn't as fancy, I can assure you that it has been amazingly reliable since I've used it ever since I became a real estate agent. And if a listing comes on the market at 3:38PM and you search at 3:39PM, you're going to be able to find it (probably before the pictures are even uploaded).
I'm also sorry but any favorites you saved or searches you created are not portable from Diverse Solutions to Solid Earth's Gateway MLS search so you'll have to start fresh.
And as always, registration is not required (unless you want to save searches and favorites).
Happy house hunting!
UPDATE: More problems at Diverse Solutions. Here are a couple of screen shots you would see when you try to search because their entire system now seems to be down on a national basis.
Wouldn't you rather search than see these.
