Search for St. Louis Homes on ArchCityHomes.com

by Karen Goodman on September 23, 2009

j0438458 Search for St. Louis Homes on ArchCityHomes.com

When I set up this website, I took the position that anyone is welcome to search for homes on my website without being required to register. I have been providing access for my website visitors to browse through as many St. Louis area homes for sale as they want since I set up my first website in 2007.

Registration is Now Required

About a year ago, I changed my Home Search provider to Wolfnet’s Mapfinder search. Wolfnet has the best home search solution available for the St. Louis region, and I’m all about providing the best services to my clients and site visitors.

The Home Search is actually the most expensive feature of this website. Wolfnet tracks every time someone zooms in or out on the map. My subscription plan allows 5000 map zooms per month, then I start paying extra every time someone zooms the map in or out.

For the first time, I’ll be getting an extra bill this month.

The good news is that I’ve been getting more visitors to this website. More people searching for homes means more business. I’m thrilled to see the increase in traffic and have started seeing the work I put into this blog and website pay off. Three of my 4 current listings came from people that found this website, liked what they saw and hired me.

Free Trial is Always Available

I hate it when I’m forced to sign up for something before I know if I even like the service.

It’s the reason that my buyer clients get a few ‘no strings attached’ home tours before I ask them to sign a buyer’s agency agreement stating that I will represent them in their home purchase. If they don’t feel we are a good fit, then I don’t think that they should have to work with me.

Following the same philosophy, new website visitors will still be able to try out the Home Search without registration to see if they like the search format and output.

Every St. Louis region brokerage and agent website providing a MLS home search has all of the same listings, but the format of the information and pictures varies depending on the software provider. And the search options are different too.

Starting today, after home search visitors view the details on 5 home listings, they will be required to register to continue using the home search.

If I’m going to be paying for all these people to search for homes as often as they like, I should at least have a way to send them an email to thank them for visiting the website and offer my help for their home search.

Benefits of Home Search Registration

Registering for the Home Search offers some perks for my website visitors too.

Saved searches – You can save any search that you perform so the next time you log on, you can just pull up the search again rather than having to recreate it.
Saved favorites – when you find a home that looks interesting or you want to monitor it for price changes, simply make it a favorite.
Email favorites – email a listing to yourself or a friend
Email notification of new listings – If you save a search, you will be notified by email when new listings meeting the search criteria come on the market or a listing that was out of your price range drops the price below your maximum purchase price. (NOTE: in order to receive email notifications, you must click on the link you receive by email when you register to authenticate the account)

Can’t find a home that you saw previously but didn’t mark as a favorite?

The site automatically tracks every search you perform and saves them under Recent Searches. Go back to your prior searches to easily pull it up again.

Get started searching for homes now.

If you are looking for a home to purchase and don’t already have a buyer’s agent assisting you, give me a call to schedule a showing for any home you find on this site.