Mastering our search engines

About the databases | About cookies | Choosing a community | Refining your search

Learning the idiosyncrasies of searching can be the biggest challenge in navigating a Web site. As this site has grown, we’ve rebuilt our listings, sales transaction and articles search engines and altered how they function. So take a few minutes to learn how the searches operate.

About the databases

Most searches on Chicago Tribune Homes combine multiple databases for a more comprehensive look at the real estate market:

• Homes for sale: This search combines listings from three regional Multiple Listing Services – the MLS of Northern Illinois, the MAP Multiple Listing Service, and the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors MLS – with Chicago Tribune classified advertisements and the NewHomeNetwork.com new-construction database.

  In some cases, every active listing in the database appears on this site; in others, only those agents who have consented to Internet listings. Brokers and developers may pay to make additional information available, such as company background or e-mail links.

• Apartments: The search includes text listings from Tribune classifieds and photo listings from Apartments.com, a source that includes individual landlords and agents such as Relcon Apartment Finders.

• Other real estate: Tribune classifieds ads for apartment buildings, vacant land and other categories.

• Transactions: A database of public records licensed from Record Information Services Inc. Listings from 1993-1999 are licensed from the firm Transamerica Intellitech. Generally the digital record of a sale is available within two months after closing. For more information about the transactions database, read the frequently asked questions.

• Communities: Tribune-commissioned profiles are displayed with school, crime, demographic and other data from public and private sources.

• Search stories: The search form at the top or bottom of many pages will access articles on the Tribune site. This free keyword search includes real-estate reports from the Tribune, Tribune Media Services and other wire services, as well as local reporting.

• Search archives: A text search of articles published in the Chicago Tribune since 1985. There is a fee for this service.

About cookies

How does a search engine keep track of queries from page to page? In our database searches, the server will make a notation called a cookie in your browser program. Our server refers to the code in matching listings to your search criteria.

This user ID will expire when your Internet session ends, so you’ll have to re-enter your search criteria when you return to the site. Cookies also may control advertising display; for details, read our privacy statement.

If your queries do not return any listings, your browser may be set to refuse cookies. To allow our server to communicate with your browser, change your browser settings to accept cookies:

• Netscape 4.5: From the edit menu, select Preferences – Advanced. Choose “Accept all cookies” or “Accept only cookies that get sent back to the originating server.”

• Internet Explorer 5.0: From the Tools menu, select Internet Options – Security – Custom level – Cookies. Choose either “Enable” option.

• AOL 4.0: From the My AOL menu, select Preferences – WWW – Advanced. Choose “Warn before accepting cookies.”

Choosing a community

Most of our searches require you to begin with the name of at least one suburb or Chicago neighborhood. If you are unfamiliar with the Chicago area, get your bearings using our map search.

• Chicago: Our community profiles, home listings and transaction records are organized according to the city’s 77 community areas. Entering “Chicago” as a community name will return some city statitistics but only scattered for-sale listings, and generally our search engine’s 200-listing maximum for transactions.

  Many Chicago neighborhoods are associated with the 77 official community areas. If you select Wrigleyville, for example, you will get data for the entire Lakeview community of which it is a part.

• Suburbs: Rental and sale listings and our community information database cover the six Illinois counties surrounding Chicago – Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will – plus Lake and Porter counties in northwest Indiana. Our transactions data covers the six Illinois counties; transaction data is not publicly disclosed in Indiana.

There are two ways to choose a community:

• Type names yourself. Community information is available one town at a time, but for listings or transactions you can type in more than one community by separating their names with commas. Type community names rather than “Chicago.”

• Select names from a master list. Follow the link from the search page to see a list of all communities for which data is available.

  You can search on up to 15 communities at once within Chicago or any one of the counties displayed. Select multiple communities by holding down the control or apple key as you click on community names.

  If you are searching for community information, making your selection and pressing “OK” will retrieve a profile of the community, with links from the margins to additional data on school districts, crime rates and other data.

  If you are seeking home listings or real estate transactions, pressing “OK” will return you to the search form, with the community name field filled in. Complete the form and execute your search.

The listings search combines broker listings for the specified community and Chicago Tribune classified ads that include the name of a recognized neighborhood in the text. In either case, it’s possible for an agent or advertiser to place a listing in the wrong community.

Classified ads occasionally can be misclassified (or totally excluded from the search results) based on neighborhood names in the text. An Austin Avenue address, for example, might appear in the Austin neighborhood.

RETURN TO TOP

Refining your search

If you get too few listings from your queries, you may not be casting your net far enough – your search criteria may be too narrow. For example, you may be looking only for houses, but in a price range where only condominiums are available.

On the other hand, searches that yield a large number of results (the maximum is 200) could prove too unwieldy to investigate fully. Our searches default to the maximum scope: If you do not check a property-type box, for example, your search will return listings for all types.

Use these search criteria to expand or narrow your search:

• Addresses.Narrow your listings or transaction search by entering a street name or address. For example: Selecting “Main” as the street will return all addresses on Main Street for the community or communities you specify. If you enter a street name without naming a community, your search will return properties for any community in which that street exists. You cannot enter more than one street name for each search.

  The search engine looks for an exact match, so if the data shows an address as “Park Pl,” entering “Park Place” will not find the listing. Try entering just the street name without abbreviations, or enter abbreviated and unabbreviated forms in separate searches.

• Property type. The listings search allows you to select only houses, or only multifamily properties such as condominiums or townhouses. This classification is made by the listing agent for an MLS listing, or the advertiser for a classified ad. So even if you’re interested only in condos, consider a separate search for houses with the same criteria to capture any misclassifications.

• Price range. Search across multiple price ranges by holding down the control key on PCs or the apple key on Macintoshes. Listings are sorted in descending order of price.

• Room count. Consider using room count to suggest square footage or other factors not incorporated in our search engine. For instance, while the apartments search can’t be set to display only houses for rent, you can choose three or more bedrooms or two or more bathrooms, then browse the results for house and townhouse listings.

• Amenities. If you select amenities, your results will be sorted according to the presence in each listing of the features you have checked. Remember, however, that a property may include an amenity even if it is not specified in the listing and thus not returned by your search.

• ZIP Code. The transaction dabase is searchable by community name, ZIP Code, street name or address, or a combination of the three. To do a citywide search on Chicago (for which listings are referenced by community area, not city name) enter 606** or 606?? in the ZIP Code field to find Chicago listings, as well as listings that our software could not associate with a specific community.

• Year. The transactions search form allows you to specify a price range to search the year in which the property sale closed. Keep in mind that transaction data will not be available until about six months after the actual closing date.