Ebby.com is Dallas’ most up to date Realtor-driven website. I use it to find interesting open houses, check listings, and the like. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s seen a property listed on Ebby.com that hadn’t yet reached the originating broker’s site.
Other local brokerages have great sites, too. Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International is easy to navigate with quality graphics. (Don’t worry, we’ll dish on them in a future column.) To a buyer, an agent’s “welcome mat” is their website. What’s the quality and search-ability of their web site? Is it easy on the eyes? Poor or slow, cumbersome or clunky, and buyers are off to another site.
As a buyer, I’d long ago setup an Ebby Alert daily email for any new listings in the Oak Lawn and Turtle Creek areas. But recently I got to wondering … was there a way to create an Ebby Alert just for high-rises?
I popped a note off to Ruth Johnson, Ebby’s Implementation and Web Manager to see.
Short answer: You can.
Long answer: You can do a lot more than that
Users can create email Ebby Alerts based on any search they can create. Searches cover a wide variety of property traits that enable property buyers to tailor results to their needs. I’ll assume you’ve mastered the bunny trail of parsing listings by price, city and bedrooms. Let’s bump that up a notch.
First you have to have an account on Ebby.com. You can sign in with Facebook or Google but if you don’t want to feed the social media beast, all you need is a name, email address and password to create an account. Minimally invasive.
Once you’re signed in, go to the main Ebby.com page. From there, in the upper left blue area, click “Advanced Search.” The three buttons below are other search options, but I’m walking through the whole enchilada, so patience.
On the next page, under the left “Search” banner are the most obvious ways to search. There are a few not so obvious search options listed.
Dart rail stations. Users pick their station and the distance from the station where they’d want to live. As of this minute, there are 347 properties within two miles of the Park Lane station that range from a $5.695 million manse at 3501 Caruth Blvd to a $49,950 one-bedroom condo at 8750 Park Lane.
Proximity Search. Don’t want to leave your neighborhood? (I find proximity search better than “map search” because the results aren’t limited by things like zip codes.) Click here and see properties within a set distance from your current home. Within a half-mile of my home there are 44 properties for sale ranging from $189,000 for a one-bedroom condo to $3.395 million for a five-bedroom mansion.
Users could just as easily enter the address of an amenity they’re looking for, be that work, recreation or even your favorite watering hole. Unfortunately at this time you can’t perform a search for the “furthest away from “X” in the case of trying in-laws or noisy neighbors. I’d suggest American Airlines for those needs. 🙂
School District. As it says on the can, enter your preferred school district and search away. Open to more than one? Clickity-click, you can do that too.
The search possibilities don’t stop there. Outside those big bucket searches is where you’ll find options to fine tune even more. From center of the Advanced Search page, there’s a drop down under Property Details for “Type”. It’s here that you can select property types, be they log cabin, historic/conservation district, “hi rise” …even single/doublewide with land.
The oddest property type has to be “underground”. There are a few listings showing clearly above-ground homes … some with a twist … and some with apparently fat-fingered agents. A Possum Kingdom Lake home is listed as a “prepper’s dream home” with 4,522 square feet including a 1,000-square-foot bunker. Another of the listings has a green roof planted with a lawn for keeping the home well-insulated.
You can learn a lot puttering around search tools like this.
Back to “Hi Rise” listings. As of this moment, there are 167 high-rise condos for sale on Ebby.com. Because I didn’t want to limit my search by any parameter like size, location, or price, my results stretch from Fort Worth to Dallas … Denison to Tyler.
Once you’ve sorted out your custom search, click on the “save search” button and you’re done. Whenever a listing meets the search criteria, you’ll get an email the next day. If your search is really picky or odd (like “underground”) you won’t receive daily emails.
TIP: Because there are agents out there who don’t check all the boxes when entering a listing on the MLS, backup any specific search with a straight zip code or other address-based search. Using both high-rise AND Turtle Creek Zip searches, I’ve noticed more than one high-rise listing in the Zip code email that’s not in the high-rise.
Saving Yourself the Hassle
I’m all about having information tailored to my requirements. Ebby’s Advanced Search function really delivers the data granularity to reduce buyers’ time wasted on unsuitable listings. Were I personally in “buyer” mode, I’d create a specific Ebby Alert for high-rises in a specific area, with certain bedroom, square footage, location, and of course, price parameters. But since I’m writing, not buying, these days, I want to see everything.
However you choose to setup your searches, that regular Ebby Alert email is a nice way to start your (home searching) days. And of course one of Ebby’s bright, shiny agents will be there to answer your call when the right property pops up.
Remember: High-rises, HOAs and renovation are my beat. But I also appreciate modern and historical architecture balanced against the YIMBY movement. If you’re interested in hosting a Candysdirt.com Staff Meeting event, I’m your guy. In 2016, my writing was recognized with Bronze and Silver awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Have a story to tell or a marriage proposal to make? Shoot me an email [email protected].
