As Promised – A New Way to Search For Homes in Charlottesville

Finally. After watching my friends Jay in Phoenix (archived: 2010) and Kris in San Diego do such wonderful things with their MLS search tools, I’m finally able to announce what I believe to be the single best tool to search for homes in the Charlottesville, Virginia area* –

Since founding RealCentralVA in 2005, I have never put a “Search for Homes” feature on my blog because none of the ones available had what I wanted; the technology is finally here thanks to Diverse Solutions. Also, I haven’t wanted to put “a” search solution here as I want it to add value to readers, rather than detract from the content and goals of the site. This tool, which you can use here, fulfills what I’ve been looking for.

A few of the features –

– Get alerts sent to you via Email or RSS

– Search by multiple School Districts – (eventually you should be able to search by more than one school district – I’m working on this)

– Search by Price Drops – ex: 10% in the past 10 days – and indication an property may finally be priced right

– Search by Foreclosure/Pre-Foreclosure status (still testing this one for its validity)

– Save your searches!

– Add notes to properties you’re watching.

One thing I’m already wanting to have changed (and there are likely more waiting to be found) – increase the number of results that display. I want more.

There are likely a few nuggets here and there that you’ll find useful and interesting.

With this tool, you are able to search almost the entire Charlottesville MLS – and as much as you’ll get anywhere else in the Charlottesville area – there are a few brokerages who choose not to display their listings in what is called an IDX feed – (more on this later)*.

One additional note – for the time being, I am going to keep registration off, meaning that you are free to search as much as you want (although I reserve the right to experiment from time to time). However – in order to save searches, get alerts delivered to you via RSS or email, you do need to give me some information (how else would the email gnome find you?) I’ll never spam you anyway. Promise.

Give it a spin by searching for Charlottesville homes here

Eventually, I’ll have a search widget in the sidebar of RealCentralVA, a search page and widget just for Crozet at RealCrozetVA, and hopefully one day soon at RealWaynesboroVA.

Be nice – I rushed to get it up today because I couldn’t wait any longer.

Please, please, please let me know what you think – I’ll make the changes as quickly as possible. It’s evolving and I’m happy to finally have somewhere to start.

* Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson –