IDX stands for "Internet Data eXchange" and is a policy developed by the National Association of REALTORS®, which facilitates the electronic dissemination of MLS listing information to authorized parties. Also known as Broker Reciprocity, IDX is a means for enabling participating Agents, Brokers, and authorized 3rd party vendors to download listing data from their MLS in order to display it on their websites.

IDX enables your website to display a vast inventory of all homes for sale in your area. It is a powerful tool that distinguishes you as both a service provider and an information provider. The main advantage of IDX is that it helps to keep website visitors on your site, rather than having to go to other sites in order to see all of the properties available in a market area.

MySpace, Google, and YouTube have offered FREE services to consumers with great success. Realtor.com, Zillow, and Trulia are national real estate web sites that target consumers directly with FREE services, as well. What makes softRealty.com different is that we are catering to Real Estate Professionals with our FREE services, not just the consumers.

Client engagement and loyalty is important to your business. softRealty.com offers a rich property search experience that captures and retains your clients’ attention. Advertisers will augment this experience that builds on your clients’ aspirations to turn their property purchase into a home. Providing this experience, paid for by advertisers, is an absolute win-win for both you and your clients.

Our ads are meant to benefit your clients with products and services relevant to their home buying experience, the local businesses they are searching within, and other areas of interest. Our goal is to design an advertising presence that will be appealing to your clients, while maintaining your professional image.

Our service is supported by advertising, much like advertising supports Google, radio stations, and network television. The ads we display are meant to benefit your home buying clients with products and services that are relevant to their home buying experience. Our goal is to design an advertising presence that will be appealing to your clients, while maintaining your professional image. And, most importantly, we will never display ads from competing agents.

No. The listing data we display ultimately belongs to the brokers, the real estate boards, and/or the multiple listing services, depending on regional agreements. But in all cases, the listing data is only available to be shared among their members.

Not at the present time. Our search tool runs within a traditional HTML Frame or within an iFrame on your website. This is the easiest way to present our search engine to your clients and allows us to customize the tool to highlight you. If you are working with a web developer who would like to discuss other options, please have him/her contact us at support@softRealty.com.

No. At minimum, you need to have a web page that you are authorized to modify. However, you can find many free and low-cost website hosting options available on the Internet, which would give you the ability to have your own website that could host our Search Connect™ IDX solution.

You may go to the softRealty.com website and select View Examples to view our tool on a live customer website. Note that you will not be able to view all features through this process. You will be able to experience the search engine from a buyer’s perspective, but you will not be able to view the back-end Agent tools.

Please remember that there is no cost or commitment to you for using our Search Connect™ IDX solution. We are confident that you will find that it is worth the minimal effort to add us to your website to see how well our products work for you.

Our Search Connect™ property search engine is FREE and will always be FREE. If you take some time to look at our product offerings, we think you will see great differences in the look, feel, usability, and features as compared to what you are currently using. Our products are community-driven, meaning we build the tools that agents ask for. And what you see now in our tool is just the beginning of the great features that will be available.

FMLS is now available.

Our service is currently available to members of the GAMLS and FMLS, with many additional MLSs to follow in the very near future. We are adding new MLSs every month. Please let us know if you want us in your area and what MLS you use. We will move to new markets based on the requests we have coming out of that market.

Additional markets are in the process of being rolled out. All registered members will be kept informed as to when each new market becomes available.

This will vary by MLS. After you register on our site, we will send you an email that outlines the requirements that apply to the MLS(s) you select.

Not at this time. There are a number of web site designers that specialize in real estate sites, but any web designer can very easily add the Search Connect™ property search engine to a site they are designing for you. There are also a number of software options that allow you to design your own site.

We are very happy to work with web site designers to integrate our IDX solution into your web site design. Our tool gives you the ability to provide your clients with a first-rate property search engine, which is continually updated with great new features. But the best part is that it is completely FREE -- so it costs you and your client absolutely nothing to add our application to their site.

Please note that agents and brokers must register and sign the appropriate MLS paperwork to use us or any other IDX vendor. We do require that website designers have at least one agent or broker register and sign the required paperwork. This provides verification that you do, in fact, work with member agents, to ensure that we stay in compliance with the MLS(s) and that the data is not being distributed against the requirements given to IDX vendors by the MLS(s).

Yes. We are very interested and can help customize where and when your advertisements are displayed. If you are interested in advertising with us, please send an email to ads@softRealty.com.

We are currently filtering out duplicate entries for single family homes. There are some inherent challenges with other property types such as multi-unit dwellings and acreage listings that may result in duplicate listings being displayed in the search results for these types. In our ongoing effort to try to provide the best possible data available, we will be working to try to minimize the occurrences of duplicate listings for all types.

We love the challenge of disproving the axiom “You get what you paid for…” Our goal is to not only pass this cost off to advertisers, but to deliver the best set of features to you and your clients. We’ve listed a few of these features below:

I love the neighborhood… What other homes are there?

User friendly search functions enable clients to refine their search and view nearby listings with an interactive map.

Hmmm… Where did I see that listing earlier?

Clients can register online to save their searches and properties or simply revisit their history of viewed properties.

Nice website… Is there a real agent I can work with though?

Selling and buying a home is a stressful time for many people. Your goal, as an agent, is to capture new leads and engage with your clients. You can do both with the ability to send messages to registered and anonymous visitors so that you can start building a relationship and walk them through this exciting process.

This is a hot topic.

IDX solutions that force visitors to fill out their personal information before searching will continue the trend of losing clients to competitors.

Reasons why Visitor Registration Gimmicks don’t work:

1. Visitors don’t register with other shopping sites until they are ready.
2. Visitors will Lie, Lie, Lie about who they are.
3. Visitors will go to another site that doesn’t require upfront registration.
4. You don’t want to chase down visitors that really aren’t ready for your services. Let them keep using your site until they are ready.
5. Visitors will refer others to your site because this is what they use.
6. Visitors will view you as an agent who has a lot to offer and nothing to hide.

Let your visitors get to know you before you know them. Until that trust is established, don’t restrict them from using your site. Eventually, they will realize the advantages of working with you, the agent, directly.