Matt Goyer’s Real Estate Blog

Redfin users often wonder why Windermere has more photos than Redfin does for many listings. The reason is a combination of things - the NWMLS has a 15 photo limit, Windermere is the largest brokerage in Seattle, Windermere allows their listing agents to upload extra photos.

With the NWMLS leading most MLSes with additional data such as CDOM it’d be great to see the NWMLS support more than 15 photos.

It’d also be great NWMLS members would put their open house times not just on their own site but inputted them into the MLS as well. Given today’s market we all want to do what we can to drive more open house traffic.

We debate every pixel at Redfin.

On Friday the debate was about background color of graphs.

White background:

Or gray background:

Mose, one of our developers with a flair for statistics found this quote justifying gray:

“The grey background gives the plot a similar colour (in a typographical sense) to the remainder of the text, ensuring that the graphics fit in with the flow of a text without jumping out with a bright white background. Finally, the grey background creates a continuous field of colour which ensures that the plot is perceived as a single visual entity.”

As well as, Using Gray in Plots:

The grid lines in Figure 1 are white lines on a light gray background (assuming decent color reproduction). The Washington Post commonly uses this approach. Cleveland’s plots use gray grid lines on a white background. I have a slight preference for white lines on a gray background since the gray background reduces the contrast and gives the plot more of a value-added appearance. With light gray and white both methods provide unobtrusive reference grids.

Thoughts?

Tech Crunch, Microsoft Exits Classified Listings Business.

Guess we don’t have to worry about syndicating to Live now…

According to several sources Google Street View has been spotted in Seattle.

This is good news. I feel like they have been spiting us. In fact we’re one of only two of the top 15 US metros that don’t have Street View (the ones in bold have Street View):

1. New York
   
2. Los Angeles
   
3. Chicago
   
4. Dallas
   
5. Philadelphia
   
6. Houston
   
7. Miami
   
8. Washington DC

9. Atlanta
   
10. Boston
    
11. Detroit
    
12. San Francisco
    
13. Phoenix
    
14. Riverside
    
15. Seattle

Bonus link: Google Street View car gets pulled over

Say you’re a Firefox user considering switching to Internet Explorer. If you Google download internet explorer you end up at the Get It Now page.

You would think clicking the “Get It Now” button would initiate a download of what you are looking for. But it doesn’t. You would think clicking any of the items circled in red might initiate a download; they don’t. Instead you need to look all the way below the fold to find the drop down I’ve circled in black.

This page is different than the one presented to Internet Explorer users but yet isn’t optimized around the user scenario of “so you’re a Firefox user looking to make the switch back.” There is no easy download button, no automatic OS detection, no messaging around why IE is better (is it?)

FAIL.

And if you think this is the only case of bad download design on Microsoft.com it is. The other day I had to download Virtual PC and I had to ASK SOMEONE how to download it.

The fatal and common flaw their pages share is the third hierarchy of tabs uses a button visual instead of a tab visual.

From Janelle comes the best listing photo ever.

The listing is 123 Orange Grove Ave:

And yes, that’s the primary photo. The second, and last photo, is of the kitchen which is missing a fridge.

CondoDomain runs afoul of MLS PIN in Boston, CondoDomain Gets Slapped.

Yeah, we don’t require registration and sign in for Boston just for kicks :).

I was also pleased to read another post about similar issues, Silly MLS IDX Rules.

Now we just need to hear from the brokers who actually want all these rules. It appears that the tech folks and the users certainly don’t want em and Zillow and Trulia love them as it puts them at an advantage over those who actually do the buying and selling.

This is great news!

Hopefully more MLSes follow their lead, NWMLS to Allow Brokerages to share more Data:

he Northwest Multiple Listing Service has announced policy changes that will allow brokerages to display more information on their websites. This means that if brokerages choose to, people will be able to see the length of time a property has been on the market, referred to as days-on-market (DOM), as well as cumulative-days-on-market (CDOM), along with the listing price adjustment history. The NWMLS will only allow the DOM to be shown if the CDOM is also displayed in order to insure that consumers are not mislead.