The MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is an incredible tool for the Real Estate professional to match up buyers and sellers. It is only available to licensed Realtors who are members of their local Real Estate Board.

In a 'watered down' form the MLS is also available, over the Internet, to the consumer - but there are some things you should know before you use it:

read on:

MLS.ca is a Canada wide, searchable, presentation of homes listed for sale across the country. This site is comprehensive, fast, and presented well.

However, keep in mind these things:

No addresses: Eventhough you can narrow a home down to a particular neighbourhood, the information rarely includes the address. Without the address you can't tell if that really good sounding property is on a quiet street or backing onto the service station.

Here at K Adolph Realty, we consider the address as one of the most important pieces of information (up there with the price - don't you hate ads without the price and address) We take the steps to ensure the address is included in all mls.ca ads, plus we provide a link that takes prospective buyers directly to a fully detailed description of the property for sale (including photos) on our website.

Nevertheless, over 90% of the Calgary MLS.ca listings will not give you the address.

Working with a Realtor: Although MLS.ca is great for browsing, if you're serious about buying a home it has some limitations. Why? First, there often is a lag time (it can vary between a day and a week) between a property being listed and actually showing up on MLS.ca. In that time the really good properties and really good deals are usually already gone. Plus, we all have busy schedules and it's difficult to check on something every day. As a service to our clients we provide automatic new listing information straight to your email inbox - customized for your criteria.

The MLS.ca is NOT the database that your local MLS Realtor uses. They have access to a 'real time' MLS data base. This means that the instant a Property for sale is 'loaded' (listed) onto the MLS computer it is immediately available to all the member Realtors of that city - no lag time.