MLS

[Farril De foor]

I am not a broker or r/e agent or appraiser but I have a need to evaluate properties using the MLS because its such a great tool.
You can look at property a 100 ways with it.
Can I get into MLs
Thanks
FD4

[John Worley]

Most MLS will only let you have access if you are a r/e agent or an appraiser (NAR's attempt at keeping the information exculsive to r/e agents and out of the public's hand, which is down right stupid.).

However there are plenty of other databases to obtain good comp information from. First and foremost, you can go down to the local county courthouse and go through recent sales. Another option are paid services such as RealQuest, Realist, or Redlink. I like RealQuest in particular because instead of having to pay a huge monthly fee for access to the service, you can set an account and pay for the reports one at a time. I get comparable sales reports for about $3 a piece that way.

Also bear something else in mind, while MLS is great tool when researching market data, it has two major drawbacks. First it is expensive. Back when I had access as an appraiser, it costs me something like $300 or $325 a month and that was just for the limited access they give to an appraiser. Second, the MLS is limited to only those sales and listings that were handled by a real estate agent. Now think about that and consider about big the FSBO market is in this country (especially in the REI business). The databases I mentioned earlier (county sales records, RealQuest, Realist, and Redlink) don't have any such limitation.

Last thing, stay away from the AVM like Bank of America, Zillow, HouseValue.com, etc. More times than not, these things are way off is their value estimates and completely worthless.

Originally posted by "d4properties":

I am not a broker or r/e agent or appraiser but I have a need to evaluate properties using the MLS because its such a great tool.
You can look at property a 100 ways with it.
Can I get into MLs
Thanks
FD4

[Bryan .]

I have used "realstats.net" and realtor.com for some comparable information.

[Chris Smith]

in my area most MLS as used by realtors and they arent too many private sellers or forsale by owners. i have found some junkers on there pretty darn cheap tho.

[Account Closed]

MLS is a private network owned by the local Realtor groups. Check with them if any for of associate membership is allowed.

Otherwise you can get most info from the public records. Title companies sell the data to anyone who wants to buy it. Note MLS is not free to agents so paying for the data is assumed even if you were a Realtor.

John Corey