The second question we got asked after starting Doorsteps was always: “What are you going to do about listings?” (The first was “Take on housing? Are you nuts?”).

Listings are the pink elephant in the room of every real estate startup. Whether you want to acknowledge them or not, they’re there. And if you ignore them too long, eventually they start breaking your best china.

As Doorsteps evolves from an educational tool into a living environment for early homebuyer research and action — listings integration is a crucial evolution in creating a rich homebuying experience.

But as we contemplated the best way to integrate listings into Doorsteps several months ago, we learned that it’s a thorny and surprisingly complex topic. Accuracy of online listings is a huge issue. Ownership of listings is another. Integrity is a bigger issue still. The list goes on.

That’s one of the main reasons we decided to work with realtor.com, which has data agreements with over 800 MLS across the country with 90% of their listings updated every 15 minutes. Not only are their online listings the most accurate in the industry, they are just as fanatical as we are about dreaming up ways to make online listings as useful, forward-looking, and innovative as possible.

That’s why we are happy to announce that buyers can now add listings from realtor.com into their Doorsteps. By navigating to the listings tab in Doorsteps all they need to do is copy and paste the realtor.com url. Buyers also have the option to install a bookmarklet in their browser toolbar which will offer one click functionality to save listings from realtor.com.

Curious buyers might collect listings for inspiration while exploring what features, design, and attributes best match their wants in a home (this is v1 which is live today and pictured above). Committed buyers might discuss properties they’ve seen with their partner, agent and lender in order to find the best fit (this is v2, coming soon, which will work nicely with the realtor.com mobile app). And confident buyers will have the education, experience, and insight to know which listings might actually become their next home (in comes realtor.com again).

Listings is one part of the complex homebuying journey that Doorsteps is tackling and our next step is to allow our agents and lenders to use them with their buyers too (we’re busy baking that into the site as we speak). And soon to come is our version of a buyer dashboard (their “home” inside Doorsteps) which integrates educational information, listings, neighborhood data, mortgage information, tasks and more. 

We know that home is a feeling more than it is a place. But finding a house is part of helping you define your own sense of home. 

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