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Further Leveraging IDX Feeds

By: Jonathan Dalton, DaltonsAZHomes.com
Posted: Wednesday, January 30th, 2008, 7:58 pm MST
Category: Wish List

As part of membership in the Arizona Regional MLS, each agent has access to an IDX feed for their website. It’s a basic search, based (painfully) in a frames format that can be dropped onto a page. The theory is someone can search for homes and if they like what they see from the rudimentary information provided, they can back out and e-mail you for additional information.

Some of us have taken the additional step of using the services of an IDX repackaging company that adds a couple of what I consider crucial features:

This afternoon I discovered there are two criteria glaringly absent from the filter menu - Lender Owned homes and homes where Lender Approval is Required (read: short sales.)

I want the latter filter to help eliminate properties from the search, saving both me and my buyers hours of agony pursuing homes that likely can’t be sold. But I want the former filter so I can produce lists of REO properties in whatever city or area I happen to choose.

Unfortunately, it’s not currently possible. According to the folks with IDX, ARMLS currently is looking at adding this field to the IDX data that flows forth from the main database but it’s still in the discussion phase.

Moving the addition of this from the discussion phase to reality is one of the items I have on my wish list. The only objection I can see is from those who still want to protect the data in hopes of receiving a call from someone confused by a list price.

But that’s so 1978.

One Response to “Further Leveraging IDX Feeds”

  1. Bob Bemis Says:
    January 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

    Jonathan,

    You are absolutely right about our (ARMLS’s) need to reevaluate the content in our IDX data feed. (IDX, for those new to the business, stands for Internet Data eXchange, and is the program and guidelines under which brokers, and through them their agents, can share data and advertise each other’s listings on their websites.) This topic was reviewed by the ARMLS directors (who make and review our rules) at their January meeting earlier this week, and they took action to add over 20 fields to the data feed as soon as possible. This action was to synchronize our data with that of other MLSs around the state in anticipation of creating a common, shared data pool. This pool would make it easier for those brokers who have offices in multiple MLS areas to get data from both (all) of them through one source, rather than needing to pull multiple data sets and synchronize them.

    Unfortunately the field you need, called Miscellaneous in our database, was not among them. This field contains the elements you need (including Court Approval Required, Lender/Corp Approval Required, and the ever popular Lender Owned Property). It was omitted primarily because it was not included in the other MLS data feeds we examined. HOWEVER, I also submitted to the directors a lengthy list of additional fields that did not (in my estimation) contain any private or confidential information and therefore deserved their consideration for inclusion in the IDX data feed. That recommendation will be considered in the near future, perhaps as early as the February meeting.

    Some other good news and bad news: Our MLS conversion is now targeted for July 28 (new date) and with that pending, our current vendor may be less likely to accommodate any change requests such as changing our data feed set-up. (That’s the bad part, but we will ask just to see how bad.) HOWEVER, at the same time we are changing MLS systems, we are changing data feed systems and our new data servers, the computers that feed the IDX repackaging companies you mentioned, will be managed by our new vendor, FBS. (That’s the good news.) FBS, as you know, has been very responsive to our requests, and if all goes well on the development side we could have those data servers up and operational well before the scheduled system changeover.

    So, relief may not be as far away as we might think right now. I’ll keep you posted.

    And keep those wish lists growing. If anyone has requests but is perhaps hesitant to post them publicly (nothing worse than being flamed by your fellow bloggers for making what some might consider a stupid suggestion), we have set up a new mailbox to receive your ideas: feedback@armls.com. The ARMLS managers and I check it daily and we will pay attention. Let your wishes be heard. Write early, write often.

    Thanks,
    Bob Bemis, ARMLS

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