Hi KIBU

A few points for you.

The San Diego Association of Realtors is our local association here in San Diego county. In order to obtain MLS access, one must be a member of the association. The company that “runs” the MLS so to speak is Sandicor.

Now, SDLOOKUP, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and EVERY single website that advertises “MLS” listings gets that information from the MLS that is provided by Sandicor. There is nothing on these sights that cannot be found on Sandicor. However, these other sites provide public access while Sandicor is limited to the members of SDAR.

Now think of Sandicor as the superset and all of these other sites are a subset of the superset. What is essentially different is the presentation of the data.

What are the limitations? Well I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. These sites all get updated from Sandicor daily so there is not much of a timelag. However finding listing history and other comp information from these other sites is not as straightforward as Sandicor. Similarly looking at cancelled and expired listings is not as easy as well.

Sandicor uses a service called Realist to pull up tax roll information. Using the realist tax roll, one can view the recording history for the past 4 recorded loans for a home. So you can use a little common sense to try to figure out what the person has out against the home, but you do not know how much they paid down.

As far as a list of advantages, again it is all in the eye of the beholder. I know many people who are fine with SD Lookup and foreclosure websites and that works fine for them. Many of my own clients use thier own sites and searches and don’t even ask me for MLS information. Some do and some don’t.

Hi KIBU

A few points for you.

The San Diego Association of Realtors is our local association here in San Diego county. In order to obtain MLS access, one must be a member of the association. The company that “runs” the MLS so to speak is Sandicor.

Now, SDLOOKUP, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and EVERY single website that advertises “MLS” listings gets that information from the MLS that is provided by Sandicor. There is nothing on these sights that cannot be found on Sandicor. However, these other sites provide public access while Sandicor is limited to the members of SDAR.

Now think of Sandicor as the superset and all of these other sites are a subset of the superset. What is essentially different is the presentation of the data.

What are the limitations? Well I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. These sites all get updated from Sandicor daily so there is not much of a timelag. However finding listing history and other comp information from these other sites is not as straightforward as Sandicor. Similarly looking at cancelled and expired listings is not as easy as well.

Sandicor uses a service called Realist to pull up tax roll information. Using the realist tax roll, one can view the recording history for the past 4 recorded loans for a home. So you can use a little common sense to try to figure out what the person has out against the home, but you do not know how much they paid down.

As far as a list of advantages, again it is all in the eye of the beholder. I know many people who are fine with SD Lookup and foreclosure websites and that works fine for them. Many of my own clients use thier own sites and searches and don’t even ask me for MLS information. Some do and some don’t.

Hi KIBU

A few points for you.

The San Diego Association of Realtors is our local association here in San Diego county. In order to obtain MLS access, one must be a member of the association. The company that “runs” the MLS so to speak is Sandicor.

Now, SDLOOKUP, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and EVERY single website that advertises “MLS” listings gets that information from the MLS that is provided by Sandicor. There is nothing on these sights that cannot be found on Sandicor. However, these other sites provide public access while Sandicor is limited to the members of SDAR.

Now think of Sandicor as the superset and all of these other sites are a subset of the superset. What is essentially different is the presentation of the data.

What are the limitations? Well I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. These sites all get updated from Sandicor daily so there is not much of a timelag. However finding listing history and other comp information from these other sites is not as straightforward as Sandicor. Similarly looking at cancelled and expired listings is not as easy as well.

Sandicor uses a service called Realist to pull up tax roll information. Using the realist tax roll, one can view the recording history for the past 4 recorded loans for a home. So you can use a little common sense to try to figure out what the person has out against the home, but you do not know how much they paid down.

As far as a list of advantages, again it is all in the eye of the beholder. I know many people who are fine with SD Lookup and foreclosure websites and that works fine for them. Many of my own clients use thier own sites and searches and don’t even ask me for MLS information. Some do and some don’t.

Kibu,

Access to sandicor is probably a very small part of the topic of whether to work with a real estate agent or not.

We’ve had a number of discussions about using or not using agents, and for what it’s worth, this is what I’ve come to conclude:

Regardless of whether you work with an agent or not, it is really up to you to get educated, particularly about the neighborhood you are interested in, and for you to be the driving force in any and all negotiations. The agent can be a big help with the logistics of the transaction, but only you can drive the deal to get a good deal, and more importantly, the right deal for you. All too often buyers are too trusting, and don’t educate themselves enough. Also they too often allow themselves to get emotional about the process and this clouds their decision making.

In general, you have three choices for buyers agents. Full service, which will keep all the buyers agent commission, discount, which will rebate back part of the commission to you (typically half to two thirds of commission back to you) or no agent. In the last case, typically the listing agent will keep the buyers commission. In some cases where you approach the listing agent with no agent of your own, you can get the listing agent to rep you and rebate the some of the buyers commission back to you. (Although that is at the discretion of the listing agent.)

My personal feeling is that if you go with full service, you should really expect something from that agent to justify their getting the full commission. But if you are willing to do a good bit of the research and educate yourself, and go to open house, etc, (which as I mention at the top, you should be doing anyway) then a reduced commission agent is a good choice. Lastly, going in without an agent is a tough call. Only if you have really done your research and learned a good bit about the transaction process should you even consider this. Usually, going in with no agent brings you no benefit over at least using a discount broker. The commission will not be reduced, so you won’t get a better price. The only possible advantage is that the selling agent may be inclined to present your offer in a positive light, since they would get the full commission, but I’m not sure that’s that strong of an influencer to get you a significant price reduction.

As always, there are exceptions to these general rules, and every person’s situation needs to be evaluated individually, but I think these general rules are important.

Note however, that I don’t think that access to sandicor is particularly valuable or important. In rare cases you might learn something of value that you wouldn’t find on SDlookup or other sites, but I think that’s the exception, not the rule.

Likewise, working with an agent that is active in the area you are looking might occasionally result in a lead on a house before it hits the MLS, but in this market, not so much.

Just my two cents worth,

XBoxBoy

Kibu,

Access to sandicor is probably a very small part of the topic of whether to work with a real estate agent or not.

We’ve had a number of discussions about using or not using agents, and for what it’s worth, this is what I’ve come to conclude:

Regardless of whether you work with an agent or not, it is really up to you to get educated, particularly about the neighborhood you are interested in, and for you to be the driving force in any and all negotiations. The agent can be a big help with the logistics of the transaction, but only you can drive the deal to get a good deal, and more importantly, the right deal for you. All too often buyers are too trusting, and don’t educate themselves enough. Also they too often allow themselves to get emotional about the process and this clouds their decision making.

In general, you have three choices for buyers agents. Full service, which will keep all the buyers agent commission, discount, which will rebate back part of the commission to you (typically half to two thirds of commission back to you) or no agent. In the last case, typically the listing agent will keep the buyers commission. In some cases where you approach the listing agent with no agent of your own, you can get the listing agent to rep you and rebate the some of the buyers commission back to you. (Although that is at the discretion of the listing agent.)

My personal feeling is that if you go with full service, you should really expect something from that agent to justify their getting the full commission. But if you are willing to do a good bit of the research and educate yourself, and go to open house, etc, (which as I mention at the top, you should be doing anyway) then a reduced commission agent is a good choice. Lastly, going in without an agent is a tough call. Only if you have really done your research and learned a good bit about the transaction process should you even consider this. Usually, going in with no agent brings you no benefit over at least using a discount broker. The commission will not be reduced, so you won’t get a better price. The only possible advantage is that the selling agent may be inclined to present your offer in a positive light, since they would get the full commission, but I’m not sure that’s that strong of an influencer to get you a significant price reduction.

As always, there are exceptions to these general rules, and every person’s situation needs to be evaluated individually, but I think these general rules are important.

Note however, that I don’t think that access to sandicor is particularly valuable or important. In rare cases you might learn something of value that you wouldn’t find on SDlookup or other sites, but I think that’s the exception, not the rule.

Likewise, working with an agent that is active in the area you are looking might occasionally result in a lead on a house before it hits the MLS, but in this market, not so much.

Just my two cents worth,

XBoxBoy