Lifestyle search is an enhanced type of property search that lets users find homes for sale based on criteria that goes well beyond the typical price and location filters. Online home shoppers can fine-tune their search by looking for properties based on school attendance zones, proximity to attractions, commute time, and more.

This benefits brokers and MLSs by improving user experience on their consumer-facing websites. It also benefits property searchers, who can more easily and enjoyably find the right property.

To help you learn more about lifestyle search, we recommend reading the following articles. They're a good place to get started:

• Match Your Online Presence to Your Offline Personality
• School Attendance Zones: Do You Know Where Your Children Are?
• The Data Deal: Point of Interest Edition

Choosing the Right Tool

If you're in the market for a lifestyle search solution, there are questions you can ask to evaluate which option is right for you, like:

• Will this solution be able to access MLS data? Where does the data come from?
• How difficult will this solution be to add to my website?
• Will the listing display and lifestyle information conform to MLS rules and regulations for IDX and VOW websites?
• Is the vendor using the free version of the mapping software or are they using an enterprise license? (FYI – Google Maps comes in both a free and enterprise version; the free version does not have update support, among other things.)
• Will visitors stay on my website when using this solution or will they be sent to an external site?