Diverse Solutions Makes some Big Changes to their IDX Product

Our IDX link: http://idx.diversesolutions.com/search/460/ - there are many problems on this new one that were not on the old one.

1. It will be natural for searchers to type in a city, say, Tampa and hit results. Doing this will yield 3 results when there should be thousands. The new version wants you to look for Tampa and select from the scroll menu then hit enter. The scroll menu should be an option, not a must. This will confuse the searchers. The natural flow would be to type in the city then hit search. This should show everything that is in Tampa regardless... not just 3 properties. There is a big flaw on selecting only from what's on the drop down items. See item 3.

2. The wild card % doesn't work any more. If you would like all of the listings on a certain community, say Rivercrest, you cannot just type Rivercrest% and show every listing in Rivercrest. You will have to select each and every Rivercrest on the drop down menu and hit enter on each and every one. This is ridiculous. There are some subdivisions that show up with 15 different items. This will take a long time. You should just be able to type in "Rivercrest" and show ALL listings in Rivercrest. Again having the scroll as an option, not a must. By not selecting from the scroll, the program should show ALL (%Rivercrest%).

3. From the example above, the Rivercrest community happen to be located in Riverview, FL. But a much older community in Tampa is also called Rivercrest. So, even with the scroll down menu, you are not able to isolate just the Rivercrest in Riverview. It shows you the Rivercrest in both Tampa and Riverview. In the OLD dsSearch you are able to filter by city or zip code. The entry on the old one would have been 33569,Rivercrest% -- 33569 is the zip code for Riverview. the % wildcard takes care of all the items in the drop down menu. The program should allow the ability to filter a community by zip or city. There are certain very common subdivisions that will show up in several cities and zip codes, so by adding this extra filtering items you are able to search precisely what you're looking for. This should also be intuitive and obvious to the users. 33569,Rivercrest% is not really intuitive. City and Zip can be combined but Community should be separated from City and Zip.

4. Here is an old dsSearch result that you will not be able to replicate on the NEW one:
http://idx.diversesolutions.com/search/460#Citi...

Click on the Search Tab to see the items:
rivercrest%
33569
rivercrest%
rivercrest%

Try recreating this exact results on the new one. You can't. Now tell me, how is this supposed to be better than the old one?

@Julie: Our extensive user testing before the release didn't reveal any of the usability issues you ran into. We're sad to hear that you don't like the upgrade, and we'll do our absolute best over the new few days to work with you and implement your feedback. Your customer service rep will be in touch with you soon.

Sonds like a bunch of great new features. My research shows that most buyers do not search with such refined criteria, but the ones that do will love it.

@Andrew - next time I'd volunteer to beta test your upgrades. I used to QA for a dot com in my past life before becoming a Realtor. Anyway I found a few more bugs. We actually have a couple of comments from our visitors about my #1 issue above. Actually if you type Tampa on the city box and hit Results you'll get 3 when using Firefox or Chrome. If you use IE 6 or 7 you'll get 98,000!!!

Here's a new Bug: I just created this link for Bank Owned Homes: http://idx.diversesolutions.com/Link/17568

Works fine in Firefox and Chrome. Not on IE 6 or 7. Reason being, IE doesn't pick up the Foreclosure/Bank Owned check box therefore shows a gazillion results instead of 52.

I'll keep playing with it to see what else I can find. Looking forward to hearing from my rep. So far I haven't had any response from my emails to support.

Is this IDX solution regionally limited in it's data? I mean to say, are there regions where you can and cannot distribute information for?

@Rancho Mirage: We (Diverse Solutions) don't actually distribute the data. Instead, we load the data from each MLS we support into our system so that we can then allow the members of that MLS to use our solution.

Off the top of my head, I can't remember if we support the Rancho Mirage area though. If you give us a buzz on Monday though, I'm sure a sales rep will be able to answer that question for you.

From what I have seen, most people searching online just want a very generic earch when they are getting started. However, when they get serious, some then zoom in and get very specific with search criteria. So a very basic search feature is OK, but agents really need a search features with more criteria like you are describing.

I was very interested in using Diverse Solutions in my website. I looked up my listing on the the site and saw at least five areas where the listing information did not match the MLS information. When I brought it to my salesperson's attention I was told it would be handled immediately.
During the course of the listing (92 days) the corrections were never made. I was exceptionally upset that Diverse Solutions was displaying incorrect information in my listing, even after it was pointed out to them.

I wonder how many other listings are being displayed with incorrect information.

I also found it very difficut pulling up all the listings in the Town of Newton, MA where Newton has so many areas in it.
Also when they displayed the map of MA I was clicking on the Town of Wellesley to get Newton. The map was innacurate
and confusing because the popular towns were not placed correctly.

Everyone is saying how wonderful Diverse Solutions is. I so want an updated IDX solution in my website but these errors are inexcusable.

Nancy Comenitz

@Nancy: I personally loaded the MLS PIN data into our system, so I'd be able to address any issues you have with inaccuracies. I hadn't heard about your issues until now. Could you please provide some specific MLS numbers where the data is incorrect? I'll check it out right away.

With regards to the map marker placement and the coordinates of towns, we use a time tested statistical modeling system or order to figure out where to place the map markers and where the bounds of the cities are. We base our data off of all of the residential properties in each MLS, so it should be very accurate. Put simply, the area that the marker zooms into when you click on it will represent the area where at least 90% of the residential properties reside. Does that make sense?

Andrew,

I appreciate your quick response. My conversations with the sales rep was sometime around the 2nd week in September. I tried to locate the email but it is lost.

I loaded my listing 9/3/08 and it sold November 6th. 9/28/08 I I received a follow-up email from sales so my conversations were around the second week of September. The listing MLS#
was 70815234. The areas that were inaccurate were: Cooling, Documents on File, Electric Feature, Heating, and Term Features.
Cooling had None instead of Heat Pump, Individual Control, Unit Control
Heating had Oil, Space Heater, Steam instead of Heat Pump, Electric, Individual
Electric said underground instead of Circuit Breakers.
Terms of Use had Rent with Option instead of Contract for
Deed
Documents on File had Investment Analysis, Site Plan,
Soil Survey instead of Unit Deed, Master Deed, Rules &
Reg, Floor Plan

AS far as the western suburbs of Boston, I have sold in
Newton and Brookline for 25 years. They are the closest
city and town west of Boston and the most popular. Newton
has a triple A rating and is the most popular city in
Boston. Newton is comprised of 11 different villages
within it having their own zip codes.
Wellesley is next to Newton but is a much smaller community with 2 zip codes. I have to click on the green marker on
Wellesley in order to bring up the properties in Newton.
Maybe I should say that the placement of the markers is
incorrect on the map.

Newton is not being given the prominence it deserves.
Iam sorry for being such a pest on this matter but there
are over 450 brokers that concentrate on selling in Newton
alone. Coldwell Banker has two separate offices in Newton
as well as Hammond Residential.

Again, thank-you for your quick reply. That salesperson was awful for ignoring me and not correcting the mistakes on my listing. Why were there so many mistakes?

Yours truly,

Nancy

@Nancy: I'm not sure about the mistakes. Sometimes the MLS's give us features in a "coded" form and then accidentally break the "decoder" to tell us what features represent. That may have been what happened with the MLS PIN issues you noted, but I'm not entirely sure. Is it still incorrect now? If so, could you provide an MLS number of a property that is incorrect.

With regards to the city markers, we don't actually manually place them on the map or determine where to zoom when you click on a marker. Instead, we use statistical information derived from what the MLS gives us to determine how big the city is and where to place the marker. I'm not saying that it can't be wrong -- I'm just saying that it's not subjective. The city markers will not necessarily be in the center of the city, but rather where the center of the residential listings in the city are located. Same thing with the zoom when you click on it -- it won't necessarily zoom to the center of the city, but rather to the area which encompasses at least 90% of the listings in that city. For example, on our main IDX demo (http://idx.diversesolutions.com), the city marker for LA is located south of the city center. However, after we average out the locations of all of the LA residential listings and eliminate the ones that are statistically WAY off, our system places the marker south of the city center. Does that make sense?

My clients love the Diverse Solutions SearchAgent. If you have any issues with it that arise, the best thing to do is call their customer support team by telephone. My experience is that they will get it resolved quickly.


I had a couple moving to southern California from Houston Texas. They used the map search tool and love it over ParkPlace (I do have clients that love Parkplace too). They bought a great home from us in Corona, California. I talked to them several months later and they are still raving about the map search...and this is before Diverse Solutions released the new version