New Custom IDX Search for the Chicagoland Area and Suburbs

There's a new IDX search in town. You can search active MLS listings by clicking on the link in this sentence or the picture to the right. You will be able to view as many photos as listing agents put in and get details such as address, price, room sizes and more. If the listing agent offers a virtual tour you'll get a link to it.

The original search on www.cook-county-real-estate.net was what is called a VOW. That search required a prospect to register before ever seeing any listings. The new IDX search allows a searcher to see how many listings are available and photos and snippets of info before having to register.

Registration only requires a name and working e-mail address. Your information is kept private so you don't have to worry about having your information sold to or shared with anyone else. You can save searches, map them and get driving directions. Happy searching!

Oak Lawn Real Estate

To read an informative page about Oak Lawn homes for sale just click on the link. This new page offers an Oak Lawn MLS search link, some demographics and sales statistics plus all listings currently for sale in Oak Lawn IL.

Oak Lawn has the closest Metra train station from the southwest suburbs that will take you to downtown Chicago. There are three new and newer condominium complexes built around the station so you can walk to the train.

Oak Lawn, Illinois continues to update itself and is bringing in more dining and shopping for its residents. It has become a growing and progressive village.

Orland Park Homes for Sale and Real Estate

The popular village of Orland Park has a new webpage telling all about it. This bustling town was listed in Money Magazine as one of the top 100 places to live.

Find out all about it here: Orland Park homes for sale. This page will fill you in on why Orland Park Illinois is such a desired place to live and offers some demographics, Orland Park weather and a map of the village.

You can search the Orland Park MLS to find any Orland Park homes or homes in any area of Northern Illinois and even neighboring states like Wisconsin and Indiana.

If you're considering moving to Orland Park IL or any of the surrounding southwest suburbs, go to the site now and learn all about the area. Be sure to bookmark it as you won't need to use another site for your real estate needs.

Tinley Park Real Estate and Homes for Sale

Sometimes you need to get detailed information about an area you're considering living in. You can visit village websites or any of the dry community pages that come up in the search engines. Basic information from a good local real estate website should provide enough data for you to make an informed decision of what town you'd like to live in.

You can get a lot of information from the below link, which will give you some information on Tinley Park and show you all current real estate listings:

Tinley Park homes for sale - This is a very popular local real estate website and appears at top positions on search engines. You'll find everything you need to find a property for sale in the village.

Feel free to search the Tinley Park MLS to search for all homes available for sale in Northern IL.

Sarasota MLS Attacks One of Their Paying Members

This is a different post for this blog. But it is needed. An Internet REALTOR friend, Marc Rasumussen, has been in a lengthy battle with his local Sarasota MLS. You see, he purchased a domain name over 5 years ago called "thesarasotamls dot com". If you do a Google search for Sarasota Real Estate you'll find Marc at the #1 position. And I think that's what caused the witch hunt.

What agents were taught - by NAR!

The National Association of REALTORS (NAR) offers training for its members, including articles (magazine and online) by Mr. Internet. Years ago, Mr. Internet published ideas for creating good real estate domain names for agent websites. He suggested using area real estate or area MLS, etc.

Marc tried getting Sarasotarealestate dot com but it was already taken. The only good domain name, according to Mr. Internet, was thesarasotamls. So he took it and spent thousands of dollars and many hours getting his website to top positions on Google and other popular search engines.

And he made other agents mad

Why else would they go after him (the Sarasota board of REALTORS) and actually file an ethics complaint against Marc (which he won)? Why, after losing this ethics complaint, would they take it as far as ICANN? ICANN, despite the ethics ruling in favor of Marc, ordered the domain name to be returned to the Sarasota MLS board. So Marc cannot use this long-standing domain any longer.

His webmaster, Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmasters (REW) is trying to use a 301 redirect to his new domain, http://www.luxurysarasotarealestate.com/, so Marc can retain some of the authority he built over the years. This will help him while he's trying to build this brand new domain, which will take some time.

But we don't yet know if he'll be able to continue doing this. Once the redirect is removed I'm sure we'll see Marc's long-standing positions decline. All of those thousands of dollars and hours of work down the drain, plus having to start over from scratch in the highly competitive real estate community on the Internet.

Other's envy is hurting a family

Anyone else who has a website that falls below Marc's in the search engines could spend money and put in the same amount of hours to try to beat Marc or at least show up right below him, which will still give them business. Instead, a group formed to complain about Marc's site and finally got their way. What will they do to the next webmaster who outranks them? And I hope they'll chase the other websites with MLS in the domain name, no matter how low they appear in the search engines. But I doubt they'll bother with those.

Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate

The #1 site for Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is so popular on the search engines that many prospective buyers and sellers find the site that are looking in other areas. The link above shows the different suburbs that this site covers. In fact, some of those areas are going to be deleted as the areas served is getting revamped.

It really doesn't matter if buyer prospects from the north side find the site as the Northern IL MLS covers a huge area including all of Chicago and north, west and south suburbs. So any buyer for Northern IL can create an MLS search from the site.

For sellers that want an Internet CMA that reside out of the area might have to get referred to a local agent to do this for them. If buyers that use the MLS want to start seeing homes in areas not included in this site they also might need to be referred out. But that's OK as we have a great list of good referral agents so you can be assured you'll be well taken care of.

Find Your Dream Chicago Suburbs Home

Although it's certainly fun and interesting to search the Northern IL MLS, if you're busy and don't feel like going back or just don't have the time, you might be missing the perfect home. There is an easier way.

Just fill out the Automated Chicago Suburbs Real Estate Home Finder Form with as much information as possible. By doing this, you'll receive all active listings in the MLS sent to your e-mail. You can access the listings at your convenience.

The search will be made using your search parameters such as location, price and amenities. You can easily change any of those search items by just sending an e-mail.

Even though it's a Buyer's Market right now and there's a slew of real estate for sale, homes priced correctly are still getting multiple offers or are selling quickly. So don't let the perfect property pass you by. Fill out the form now and you can still use the MLS search whenever you'd like, but you'll receive listings from the Home Finder Search whether you do or don't.