How to choose the right IDX

Not every real estate IDX is the same.

One thing that real estate brokers and agents need to know is that when choosing an IDX provider, quality and experience are critical.

An IDX (Internet Data Exchange) is basically the software and policies that allows a broker or agent to display listings on their website.

There’s quite a bit involved with this integration.

The team at Home Junction are IDX experts. The programmers are not some developers who write code for a variety of websites but specialize in real estate websites.

Let’s start with the software. You need a reliable program that can pull information from the IDX without crashing or providing incomplete data. Home Junction’s IDX has a 99.9% uptime rate.

You also want an IDX that updates DAILY, so you have the latest listings and data on your website.

Our IDX is also customized to provide the most accurate information.

Take boundaries for example. Many times, an agent who posts a listing is not sure where the school district or city boundaries begin and end.

For that reason, the Home Junction IDX does not pull that information. Boundary information is generated from other reliable sources that Home Junction curates and digitizes using their proprietary method.

Choose from two real estate IDX products

Here’s another reason to choose Home Junction. Actually two reasons.

Home Junction offers two real estate IDX products.

The Responsive IDX (rIDX) is our basic IDX that efficiently pulls in MLS listings.

Our SpatialMatch 2.0 Lifestyle Search is a turbo-charged IDX that integrates lifestyle data and geo-spatial functionality to populate the searches with additional details – such as the proximity of the property to a golf course, restaurants or yoga studios.

Then there’s the question of feeds from multiple MLS listing services. Because Home Junction is a data aggregation company, the can easily build “co-feeds” where they co-mingle listings from different MLS listings into one agent’s website. This creates a more robust experience for consumers who can browse through more multiple listing sources.

Next, take MLS policies. Every broker or agent that pulls data from MLS listings, must know the policies for each local association. This can get complicated.

It’s important that the IDX follow ALL of the particular criteria for each MLS. Again, that’s why you want to work with a company that specializes in real estate websites.

Home Junction currently implements its IDX software in 200 markets in nearly 50 states.

Choose an IDX and plugin package

One big advantage for real estate professionals to consider when working with a real estate website developer such as Home Junction is that all of the services they need can come from one company.

In essence, Home Junction is a one-stop shop.

For example, their real estate IDX is integrated with a series of WordPress plugins – agent rosters, geo-farms, lifestyle finders, social sharing and more.

The company will also build a website for brokers and agents using the WordPress platform, the most popular and user-friendly web platform in the world.

With WordPress, a broker or agent can easily add or update content on a regular basis. WordPress was built specifically to make this process simple and easy. You don’t need programmers or webmasters to add text or photos, you can do it yourself.

You can also optimize content for search engines. WordPress is basically the most SEO-friendly platform in the world. Every broker and agent knows the value of ranking high on Google and Bing for local searches.

Those rankings can make or break a real estate company. Sure, getting to Page 1 in organic rankings on Google is super, super competitive. But there are strategies an agent can use to make inroads on where their company appears for consumer searches. For example, they can insert “long tail keywords” into their text so they can rank higher for searches that are not as competitive.

Instead of trying to rank in the top 1-3 spots for “Homes for sale in ____ County” an agent can focus on the area they are farming and develop strong ranking results for searches such as “Homes for sale in ________ Country Club.”

WordPress makes search engine optimization much easier. And Home Junction offers SEO services to help brokers and agents make that happen.

The next step would be to integrate the site’s IDX with local MLS listings. Home Junction takes care of that with their proprietary and proven IDX software.

After the site is built and the MLS listings can be fed onto the pages, Home Junction offers more.

The company is also a national provider of real estate data.

That data is super important to consumers and super relevant for real estate searches.

Information includes: Recent Home Property Sales, Home Price Trends, School Listings, Business Listings, Crime Data, Demographics, Cost of Living Indices, Boundaries and much, much more.

This helps to make an agent’s local website a true resource for home buyers.

A home buyer can not only find the latest and most complete MLS listings, but they can also research how that home compares to the rest of the market, what type of schools are in that neighborhood and the demographics for that neighborhood.

This puts an agent’s website on the same level as the national mega-real estate websites.

Speaking of which, Home Junction also offers a extremely popular Home Value Estimator tool, just like the big sites.

This is a super-powerful service to attract consumers who want to check out the value of their home. It is also a incredible tool for building traffic, promoting a brand name and most importantly, generating listing leads.

WordPress is also known for the huge number of plugins it attracts from individual software programmers. Home Junction is the expert on real estate plugins. They have developed many of their own, like the ones we mentioned above for data.

As brokers and agents can see, in today’s age of BIG DATA and FEED INTEGRATION, there are an amazing number of elements that are involved in building a real estate website, from IDX integration to providing sources of reliable real estate data.

With all those elements come complexity.

You absolutely want to work with a reliable company that is super-experienced in building these programs for the real estate industry. Your job is to attract and work with buyers and sellers. Make sure you have the tools and support you can depend on in today’s complex technological world to get that job done.