Change is good right?

Western New York Realtors are facing a huge change in how we search on the MLS come September 8th.   It is important to those of you that read Best Buffalo Homes regularly,  know that the stats you see are about to change a bit.    Using my property search you may find that there are data errors as the IDX provider works through these conversion issues.

I am not saying it is better or worse, just very different.

With change comes confusion and let me tell you that there is a lot of it going on with this conversion.   Realtors throughout WNY are working to find all the bugs and errors, but that does not mean that we will not be encountering many when we are forced onto the new system September 8th.   And as of this writing, there are no plans to delay this conversion.

The good news for you is that we are combining data with Syracuse and Rochester MLS’s so we can search there.   But don’t get too excited yet; Buffalo is the first to go onto this new system.  It will be some time before we can search Syracuse and Rochester homes for sale.

With the good news comes some bad.  Decisions were made that will affect both Realtors and Consumers in an effort to meld the three disparate systems into one and with that many of the built in community searches are going to disappear. 

We are going to have to be dependent on our knowledge of those WNY communities and each Realtor is going to have to build their own searches for those unique communities.   That also means that other Realtors will have to know the specifics of those Western New York communities to best serve their clients.

I can’t wait for a Syracuse agent do a search for DeVeaux in Niagara Falls or Green Acres in Tonawanda or Snyder in Amherst.    And you really have to know your communities in the City of Buffalo as some of those searches are different as well.

Western New York Agents that haven’t reviewed the new system are in for  a real shock.

As a listing agent it makes me rather nervous that my listings might be missed by an agent’s lack of knowledge of the communities in Western New York.    We all work all of Niagara and Erie county, and we all have a good working knowledge of these communities.   We also knew that if an agent that was not familiar with a particular area that the system guided them through the unique communities.  Yes there are searches via schools, and zipcodes so you would have to know that Snyder is in zipcode 14226 exclusively, but in Tonawanda the 14150 zipcode covers far more than the Green Acres community.

How does this affect your home search with Best Buffalo Homes?

If you are getting searches from me, you have already been moved over to the new system.   I did this when we first had the opportunity to start to test the system.   I only allow your searches for 30 days before I review and renew or delete them.   So you are working within the new system.

I knew that September was going to be a very busy month for many of my home buyers that want to take advantage of the 1st time tax credit and having you deal with a new system in the middle of your search with such tight deadlines was going to be very stressful.   all the latest data even if my property search does not return those results, just call me at (716) 650-0051 and we will make sure that you get the information that you need.

I just wanted to give you a heads up about these changes so if something doesn’t look right that you know that there are glitches over the coming weeks.  If you have any questions, please call me.

Thinking of selling your  Western New York home? Interested in finding out the current market value of your single family home, condo or investment property? Then call Colleen Kulikowski at (716) 650-0051 to discuss what is happening in today’s Western New York Real Estate Market.  We would be happy to give you a personalized Comparative Market Analysis for your home, just fill out the form below.   View additional WNY Market Area Statistics here.