Paging & result modes

Search endpoints return pages, not everything at once. They also offer three alternative result modes that answer a question about a search without paying for the records — knowing when to reach for each is the single biggest lever on what a search costs.

Paging

Two fields control paging on Property Search, MLS Search, and Mapping Pins:

  • Name
    size
    Type
    integer
    Description

    Records per page. Property Search accepts up to 250.

  • Name
    resultIndex
    Type
    integer
    Description

    Zero-based offset to start from. Advance it by size to walk pages.

Third page of 50

{
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX",
  "size": 50,
  "resultIndex": 100
}

Pick size to match how the results are consumed. An interactive results pane wants 10–25; a nightly batch job wants 250, because at the daily record ceiling a page size of 250 is 4,000 requests where a page size of 10 would be 100,000.

Result modes

Each mode replaces the record payload with something cheaper.

count

count returns the number of matches and nothing else, and does not spend credits. Use it while you are still tuning filters — you can compare a dozen candidate searches for free before committing to one.

{ "city": "Austin", "state": "TX", "count": true }

ids_only

ids_only returns just property IDs. This is the mode that makes multi-step workflows affordable: search broadly for IDs, apply your own logic to decide which ones matter, then spend credits enriching only those through Property Detail or a bulk endpoint.

{ "city": "Austin", "state": "TX", "ids_only": true, "size": 250 }

Because Property Detail accepts an id directly, nothing has to be re-matched on address between the two steps.

summary

summary returns predefined aggregate statistics for the area you searched rather than individual properties — the right call when you want to characterise a market, not enumerate it.

{ "city": "Austin", "state": "TX", "summary": true }

count and ids_only calls do not draw against the daily record limits that full result pages do. See Rate limits.

MLS-specific modes

MLS Search adds two modes of its own:

  • Name
    listing_ids_only
    Type
    boolean
    Description

    Return only listing IDs, for bulk MLS enrichment through MLS Detail.

  • Name
    ids_only
    Type
    boolean
    Description

    Return only RealEstateAPI property IDs, so MLS results can be enriched with public-record data from Property Detail.

The distinction matters: listing_ids_only keeps you inside the MLS dataset, while ids_only is the bridge from a listing back to the parcel record behind it.

Sorting and trimming

sort orders results on any sortable field, which lets you take the top N of a large set instead of paging the whole thing. On the response side, field selectors keep payloads small — rather than filtering server output in your own code, ask only for the field groups you use. The syntax is documented in No more bloated responses.

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