Accessing the MLS online has changed the way people search and buy real estate. Nowadays, all you have to do is search Google for 'Portland MLS' and you will find hundreds of websites that give access to MLS listings. The downside is most of them only offer photos and the basic listing bullet points and marketing information. Most homes on the market look pretty good in the photos, you just don't know about the neighbor next door that is a part time mechanic with cars lined up in his drive way, the high voltage power lines running over the backyard or the industrial plant that runs 24 hours a day across the street... People have to print out the listings they are interested in and personally drive by the homes to check out the neighborhoods.

Using our previous PortlandMLSDirect.com site, I had a client that contacted me with a list of 27 homes they wanted to see. I recommended they drive by the homes so we could narrow down the list. They did the next day and then contacted me and said there were only two homes they wanted to view; they ended up buying one of them. I asked her what they found when they drove by all the other homes, she said, the photos all looked great but there was something they didn't like about all the rest, it was either the neighbor’s home or what was across the street or power lines etc...

That leads me to one of the main features we have been working on... We are proud to introduce our fourth generation PortlandMLSDirect.com website. Like our other websites, you can still search virtually all the real estate listings in the Portland Metro area from all the various real estate companies. You still have access to the typical photos and listing detail... But now, on the same MLS listing detail page, you have access to a 'Google Street View' screen that allows you to see what’s next door, across the street, down the block, around the corner and what's overhead... We think this will save our clients tons of time and enable them to narrow the down the list of homes to just the ones they actually want to view...

And like always, we hope our website visitors will enjoy using this new feature so much that they will contact us to assist them with the purchase their next home...