Denver’s MLS Moving to Include Listings of New Homes & Rentals

[Published Sept. 25, 2014, in the Jeffco editions of the Denver Post's YourHub section. An abbreviated version also appeared in five Jefferson County weekly newspapers.]

I have been very pleased with the evolution of Metrolist’s consumer and professional MLS portal since Kirby Slunaker became its CEO a few years ago. The shift from in-house website design and support to a widely adopted product from CoreLogic was long overdue and has resulted in some great improvements for Metrolist users.

CoreLogic is, I am told, the nation’s largest provider of MLS platforms, with only a couple major competitors. Metrolist went through a year-long process of investigating vendor solutions, with lots of member input, and settled on the CoreLogic product called Matrix.

Now, not only do the members of Metrolist have a great new tool for better serving their clients, but the home buying & selling public has a great consumer website with many of the same improvements. The URL is www.recolorado.com.

There are countless functionalities of Matrix which I appreciate, but two which stand out for me are its map searching capability and the way I, as a member, can set up an email search for clients that gives them their own portal on Matrix for creating and saving up to five additional searches. These clients can tag or discard listings after viewing them and write their own notes about what they like and dislike about each listing, which I can then read. Nothing like this was available on Metrolist’s in-house platform on which they wasted untold capital before wisely abandoning it.

The map search function has allowed me to do something I could never do before — a search of listings within the City of Golden, instead of listings with “Golden” addresses. And, since my clients and I get notification of new or changed listings within 15 minutes under Matrix, we’re able to take action quickly. It also allows me to update active listings for a website, www.Golden.com, which is an invaluable resource for Golden residents.  (Note: I could do this for other locales which have similar websites and would like to include current real estate listings. And I can do it for any homebuyer. Just ask me!)

Now, Metrolist is, with characteristic diligence and communication, designing a way to include new home communities and new construction in its service. Currently, it is hard for both professionals and buyers to use Matrix to find and study the new communities and new homes being built by dozens of home builders in the metro area. The goal is to have buyers find these homes — and find Realtors to represent them — on Matrix, complete with floor plans, design center options, and more. Metrolist hosted a webinar last week to brief members on the design work and requesting feedback.

After this task, Metrolist will be finding a way to include rental properties on Matrix.  Go, Kirby, go!