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Want to be more efficient in finding comps for your appraisals? Have you struggled to find information on property listings and had to click on each listing, then scroll down looking for details that should be more easily found? Here’s a solution.
Create some “Custom Displays” in Matrix and your searching will be easier. A custom display lets you choose which columns appear in a single line display when you do your searches. This lets you see the information that’s important to you quickly and easily and you can also sort by those columns just by clicking on the column heading.
I have several custom displays saved in Matrix and I use them every day. The one I use most I titled “Solds” and I use this when searching for most comps. One of the columns that I have in there is the “Above Ground Finished Square Footage” field. I re-named it GLA (you can put any name you want on your columns) and now I can sort possible comps by GLA. By the way, I always put in the “Foundation Size” column next to GLA, because there are often mistakes in the GLA field and this will help you spot them. Also, in a townhome search it will help you quickly determine which townhomes are one level versus two level. If the foundation size and GLA are the same, it is likely a one level townhome. On that same search I also have the “Closed Date” field. This works well when you have plenty of comps to choose from and so you just want to pick the most recent ones without going back and changing the criteria of the search.
There are a few fields that sometimes either don’t get entered into MLS at all or are entered in a way that makes it easy to miss things. For instance, the “Acres” field is often left blank. If you need to find a comp with a half acre or more in an area where most lots are much smaller, you could miss the best comp if you search by putting something in the search field for acres. Instead, leave that search criteria out, but have the “Acres” columns in your custom display. Now you can sort by that column and any property that just has a 0.00 in that field you know you’ll have to do more research on, but at least you didn’t miss the property all together. The “Basement” field can cause problems also. If you’re looking for a comp with no basement and you enter “None” as a search criteria you may miss the property where the listing agent entered “Crawl Space” and this could be a great comp as the function is similar.
Are you looking for a sale in a particular condo complex? That is not a required field for agents to enter so many of the listings don’t tell you the complex name. But you could have it show up in a custom display. Or have the legal description, which has the complex name in it, show up. Most agents do put in the legal description. This can even help in single family home neighborhoods.
Above are just a few ideas. You can create many different custom displays to fit your needs. Just ask yourself, what do I waste time on? What items am I always having to search through each listing to find? And remember that you can use any custom display for any search. Just because you set one up specifically for townhome searches doesn’t mean that you can’t use it for a single family search. Take some time to set one up now and you’ll see how much more efficient you can be.
Zoe Liston, Certified Appraiser, REALTOR®
Tips: How do I create a custom single line display?
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