El Paso Listings 101: More than Meets the Eye

As soon as you begin to search in earnest for your next El Paso house, you are reminded once again how today’s El Paso MLS listings have become all but indispensable. Yes, it’s possible that you might find the property you’re looking for by happenstance—as a “For Sale” yard sign that catches your eye, or by spotting an intriguing ad in the local paper. But if you are any kind of discriminating buyer, even then you will certainly refrain from presenting an offer until you’ve taken a hard look at the El Paso listings to be sure the asking price is in line with current offerings with comparable features.

That’s where today’s online listings shine as a superb method of cataloging El Paso’s real estate “goods” for sale. It’s hard to conceive of a better system. Behind the glamour photos and descriptive language of the sales blubs lie the nuts and bolts—the physical details laid out in a format that’s identical from property to property. That makes apples-to-apples comparisons a snap.

But there’s even more that makes the system so valuable. The “MLS” stands for “Multiple Listing Service”—with the “service” part being the tipoff that what you are viewing online is just the tip of the El Paso real estate iceberg. Behind what you see is a highly evolved system of codified practices and legal agreements that go into making the information reliable. A listed property announces to the world that the agent offering the property has an agreement with the owner to sell at the price stated. To other agents near and far, an active listing also guarantees to pay a stated commission if they introduce their clients should they succeed in purchasing.

So today’s El Paso listings are a good deal more than simply a well-organized, constantly updated catalog of El Paso homes for sale—they are also proof that the properties that appear have been integrated into a tried-and-true system that facilitates the buying and selling of listed homes. My part, as your real estate agent, is to make sure that all parts of the system work correctly and that your interests are advanced throughout—which is also why it’s a terrific idea to give me a call!