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 | | National search sites | | | |
 Google Base
Listings source: Brokers, agents and Google Web crawls; recently more than 4.8 million housing listings available; update frequency varies by source and posting method.
Pros: Includes for-sale-by-owner listings, foreclosures, rental properties; can search by school district name; type in keyword for more specific searches; can sort price in one of a dozen ways (including square footage and year built); zoomable Google map at right pinpoints where each listing is, by number; listings free to brokers and agents.
Cons: Once a listing is clicked, you're redirected to the listing company's Web site with its own interface; some duplicate listings (e.g., same house for sale by owner and by a real estate agency, and it's not clear which listing is current; or a broker and agent can each post the same listing and it appears twice); listing removal requests by brokers/agents can take up to two weeks.
Coolest features: Can find Google Base from a Google homepage search of "Google Base" -- or you can go to base.google.com. Select the "Housing" search option.
Realtor.com
Listings source: On average, more than 4 million listings from nearly 900 MLS operations, updated as often as every 15 minutes (for more than 1.5 million listings currently) and member agents/brokers can manually submit changes or add more details.
Pros: Summaries of housing inventory, schools and other info about local neighborhoods, either by searching for one or exploring sample lists (e.g., celebrity neighborhoods, hip neighborhoods); flags show which listings are new that day or that week; video home tours on some listings.
Cons: Have to click twice to get from submitting search parameters to seeing full results (first click brings you to featured home listings only); listings gathered from nonmember agents are limited to one photo.
replacecontent-tcm:8-16909 Coolest features: Downloadable tools allow you to display a continually updated slide show of available listings in an area right to your desktop; find out how many listings match your search as you're entering your criteria, not just after you click the search button.
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