Thanks to a tip from a reader, I found out about a new home search site (MLS search) that is worth highlighting:
http://www.mlsmapsonline.com

The site uses Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology to plot MLS listings. The idea is great, but the implementation is definitely lacking some key features. For starters, if you are a Firefox user (like me), you’ll be presented with this message when entering the site:

“We’re sorry. MLSMapsOnline.com is an IE only application. Please download the latest version of Internet Explorer to continue to this website.”

What a bummer! I’m surprised that people still write programs that only work with IE. Under most circumstances, I just ignore sites that don’t support Firefox, but in this case, my curiosity for new map-related MLS searching was greater than my dislike of IE. By the way, don’t even bother to try to view this site with a Mac, I had to use my work computer (as oppose to my home computer) just to test-drive the site!. Now that I’ve acknowledged this major drawback, I’ll move on with my review…

Some things I like:

• The mixing of flash technology and Microsoft’s mapping technology makes for some really smooth visual searching. It is extremely intuitive to navigate the site. The future of home search is definitely visual, and this site is getting us one step closer.
• The ability to search by “Listed Date“. The rest of the search controls will be pretty familiar to anyone who has used an MLS search.
• The ability to log-in and save search results is nice, especially since they do not require it to use the site.

Some things I dislike:

• It is worth repeating that an IE-only tool is really pathetic, especially when it doesn’t even work on the IE version for a mac!
• The site design really encourages the user to define a city and/or county to search, when the best way to get to an interesting area would be to zoom in on that city. In other words, if I’m searching for homes in north Seattle, why limit me to the city limits. If I scroll north of Seattle, I want to see the homes that are for sale in Shoreline.
• The search options are pretty minimal. A user should have access to more advanced search options.

At this point in time, it is one of the better home search options for people in the State of Washington (assuming you’re working on a PC and willing to use IE). However, I happen to know that there are a few more MLS search sites that will come on-line soon that will be using similar technology, but won’t have as many of the limitations. The layout they’ve created is not all that different from the standard MLS search and would be pretty easy to duplicate, which leaves me still waiting for a break-out search site.

It’s worth repeating that I’m definitely interested in hearing about more of these technologies. (I find this topic much more interesting than bubble talk 🙂 ) If you know of another interesting home search site available for Seattle residents, I’d love to hear about it!

UPDATE:
1) MLSMapsOnline went live with a version that works well with Firefox! (that was a really fast update!)
2) The VP of Technology for Windemere emailed me to let me know that Windemere also offers a map for viewing homes for sale via their PropertyPoint software. I’ve played around with their mapping software before and it definitely impressed me a year or two ago when it came out. However, I’m pretty sure they are using an ESRI ArcServer backend and that technology seems dated. I definitely think that the future is in running a backend using Google Maps, Yahoo Maps or Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. Besides being extremely expensive to run, ESRI server-side software is way too difficult to implement for there to be much innovation using this software. Leave it to the big companies (like Windemere) and governments (like MTC) to run ESRI software, while the rest of us take advantage of the mapping wars that the big internet companies are waging!