Once again I have to tip my hat to Jay The Phoenix Real Estate Guy for sparking an idea for me. He recently did a piece on The Ultimate Real Estate Portal and as I read it I'm thinking, well, we have that, and we have that too, and that. Most of the great features available on my web site are courtesy of Long Realty - the company I work for here in Tucson - and the great tech team they have on staff. And after investigating other company & agent sites around the country, I realize two things. That I've taken for granted all the great features that Long Realty has made available to it's agents, and that we have one of the best, most complete and easiest to use real estate web portals available.
All these features are available from my web site www.TheFoothillsToday.com and from the Long Realty site www.LongRealty.com and on the web sites of all other Long Realty agents.
Two key features of the sites-
-When a consumer goes to a Long Realty site to do a search they'll see all the homes available in Southern Arizona that are listed for sale - by all real estate companies and agents, not just Long Realty listings. Everything that's in the MLS is on the site.
-And they can search as much and as often as they want and get all the information on all the properties without signing in or registering - no strings attached.
Property Search;
First choose your basic search method,
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Map, Area, City, Ranch, ...
Then within each of these basic searches you have the option of entering a long list of criteria to personalize your search so you see only the properties that match your criteria. Enter the location or geographic area, particular community or subdivision or school district or zip code, the price range, the year built, square footage, how much acreage do you want, # of bedrooms/baths, property type-i.e. SFR, condo, etc., # of garage spaces, Pool/No Pool, # of stories, prefer a gated community or not, a golf course community, want to live where horses are allowed, want to see only listings with virtual tours-no problem, disability adapted-you got it. Or only see property listed in the last 7 days, or property with price reductions. There are more choices, but you get the idea, lots of ways to make the property search suit your needs.
Property Search Info;
The search results for each property includes all the detailed information on each property- the address, year built, size, bedrooms/baths, # stories, acreage, tax info, all the pictures and virtual tours, the agents marketing remarks, driving directions, school information, taxes, all of it. And on the side panel are links to School Information from the appropriate school district + the Arizona Department of Education School Test Score site, a link to the tax assessor page for that property, a map link, and an aerial map view of the property. There's also a mortgage calculator, a homeowners insurance quote, a link to email the listing, print out a brochure of the property. You can schedule a showing online, or save your preferred properties in you own online file.
Get email Updates;
Create a search and get email updates every time a new property gets listed that matches your search criteria, and this is updated from the MLS every 15 minutes.
Home Evaluations;
We don't do web based evaluations, and that's by choice.
Web based evaluations are hit or miss.
We do home evaluations using all the latest data, interpreted thru the knowledge and experience of a local agent who works that area every day. While I know about the Foothills and can help a buyer or seller interested in that area, I don't know diddly about central Tucson or Vail. And no matter how much data I pull together, I can't know what's really going on in those areas. We have agents that have an intimate knowledge of every part of Tucson who can make sense of the data and help buyers and sellers make the right decisions. It's not hit or miss.
Customized for the Foothills;
Since I do my business primarily in the Tucson Foothills, I've customized my site with searches and information about the Foothills. I have quick, one-click searches, for all Foothills homes in different price ranges, and one-click searches for the most popular gated communities and golf course communities in the Foothills. There's a one-click search for all the new listings in the Foothills and a one-click search for all the homes that have sold in the last 30 days in the Foothills, and more.
We don't have everything that Jay talked about but we've got a lot of it, and the Long Realty tech staff is constantly working on new features to make it even better.
Stay Tuned. And give it a try.
