Where are you searching for Charleston real estate
... and why.
I attended hearitdirect, an amazing conference held in Charleston yesterday featuring panels of Charleston real estate consumers who provided insights into buying, selling and their use of technology to search Charleston homes for sale.
Let's focus on what they had to say about how the search process.
The most interesting thing was that the panelists searched on quite a few websites because they just didn't trust the accuracy of the data. Of course, that takes a lot of time to find a home and then find it again and again only to get more or less information every time you visit a different site.
And frankly that surprises me because the data from the Charleston MLS is basically either available through an IDX search (such as you'll find on this website) with the data feed updated daily directly by the Charleston MLS or via syndication to popular websites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and many others.
And while some sites might format things differently and provide more or less info or more or less pictures, the data should be accurate unless it isn't being updated in a timely way. And that provides a problem for the real estate consumer who has to spend unnecessary additional time searching. The good news however is that today's house hunter seems to enjoy searching making it kind of like a hobby.
The panel was unanimous regarding websites that required registration in order to search. Bottom line, as they might say in New Jersey, fuhhgetttttaboutittttttt. House hunters don't want to be hassled by real estate agents nor do they want to waste the agent's time until they are ready to act. They just want the info (and would put phony email addresses and telephone numbers if they had to register).
The good news is that no registration is required to search the Charleston MLS on this website and you can contact me when you're ready.
And today's real estate consumer wants transparency. They don't want pictures cropped to hide flaws (they might be looking for flaws). And of course they want lots of pictures and videos and as much helpful information as they can get in order to make a decision as to whether or not they might like a specific home. Now there isn't much any of the search portals can do about that but if every listing agent would enrich every listing with both as many pictures and thorough descriptions as possible, the consumer would be happy.
So here's the thing, if you want the best and most accurate search of all Charleston homes for sale and not be hassled or sold as a lead to another agent, you can search all Charleston homes for sale right here. Happy house hunting!