Evolution of Portland Real Estate Search
Imagine for a moment a world without Multiple Listing Services. Real estate agents would list homes for their clients but would have no way to get the word out to other agents. Meanwhile, buyers working with their own real estate agents wouldn’t be able to search for homes listed by all of the other agents out there. If you wanted to buy a home in Portland, you’d have to inquire with every real estate agent out there about their own personal set of listings!
That’s just how the early days of real estate were. To make things easier for home buyers in the late 1800s, realtors would get together and share their listings in giant meetings. Picture a bunch of waistcoated men sitting around droning, “I have a two-bedroom home for sale in Forest Grove…”
Eventually, our real estate forefathers figured out that if they offered a commission to fellow agents for helping their buyers find their listings, they would all do better. The MLS was born to facilitate this process. Now, there are 800 MLS’s nationwide.
You can imagine what the MLS looked like pre-internet. Giant books! The RMLS (Regional Multiple Listing Service, which serves Oregon and southern Washington) started putting them out in 1991, but soon transitioned to digital databases.
Computers really streamlined the listing process for real estate agents and those searching for a home to buy. Buyers were still realtor-dependent though; they couldn’t access the MLS themselves. Some real estate agents might have preferred that it stayed this way, but luckily private venture capitalism took over!
The RMLS began operating an online search engine, which is still available at rmls.com, but it’s not as user friendly as sites like Zillow and Truila. The downside to these national, ad-driven sites is that their information isn’t live from the source, just synched periodically. That means there can be glitches and errors — the last thing you want when searching for a home to buy in Portland!
Fortunately, there is a “just right” porridge of local MLS data, usability and accuracy. Maybe you’ve already discovered it — portlandhomesforsale.com. It’s updated hourly direct from the local RMLS feed. At the moment of writing this article it has 17,262 listings across a dozen counties. You can search by neighborhood, price range, school district, or just about any other parameter you can think of. Browse photos or generate a map to easily visualize your options. Then, save the search to have new homes that meet your criteria emailed to you as soon as they are listed.
In today’s competitive Portland real estate market, you can’t afford to use anything but the very best. You need an experienced and savvy real estate agent on your side, and the most accurate, easy-to-use real estate search tool! The MLS is all about the free sharing of information for everyone’s benefit — so enjoy this product of the digital age!
