Stop Re-Sorting Your Search Results: Set Your Defaults Once

The problem

If you use Mercala every day, you probably have a routine: open the listings page, switch the sort order to price high-to-low, filter down to Aruba, and then start working. Every session. Every time.

One of our users — a real estate agent who works exclusively with Aruba listings — told us she was changing the result ordering to descending price every single time she opened the dashboard. That's a few wasted clicks per session, dozens of times a week.

Here's the thing: you can set both of these permanently. Mercala remembers your search defaults on your account, so every new search opens already sorted and filtered exactly the way you work. Set it once, and it follows you across every device you log in on. Here's how.

Step 1: Open your Account Preferences

Log in to Mercala and click your profile avatar — the round picture (or your initials) at the right end of the header buttons.

A dropdown opens showing who you're logged in as. In that dropdown, click Account Preferences. This takes you to your Preferences page.

Prefer a direct route? You can also go straight to mercala.org/user/account. You will land on a page with your personal information at the top and, below it, a card called Search Defaults.

Step 2: Set your default sort order

In the Search Defaults card, find the Default Sort By dropdown. This controls how search results are ordered when you open the listings page. You have three options:

• Latest — newest listings first (the standard default)
• Low Price — cheapest first
• High Price — most expensive first

If you always want to see results from highest price to lowest, select High Price. That's it — there's no save button. The change is saved instantly, and you'll see a confirmation: "Preference updated successfully."

Step 3: Set your default island

Right next to it is the Default Island dropdown — the island filter applied whenever you start a new search. Choose from All Islands, Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, or Saba. If Aruba is your market, select Aruba. Again, it saves automatically.

Step 4: There is no step 4

That's the whole setup. The next time you open the listings page, your results will already be filtered to Aruba and sorted from highest price down — no clicks required. A couple of things worth knowing:

• Your defaults live on your account, not your browser. Log in from your phone, your laptop, or a colleague's computer — your defaults come with you.
• Defaults are starting points, not locks. You can still change the sort order or island filter during any search session. Your saved defaults simply decide how every fresh search begins.

Bonus: two more defaults worth setting

While you're on the Preferences page, the Search Defaults card has two more time-savers. They work exactly like the ones you just set — pick a value from the dropdown and it saves instantly.

Default View

Mercala can show search results two ways: Table View, a spreadsheet-style layout that's ideal for scanning and comparing many listings at once, and Card View, a photo-first layout that's better for browsing. If you always start in one of them, set it here and skip the toggle every session. There's also a third option, Last Used View, which simply reopens whichever layout you used last.

Default Map Style

This sets the base map for the map view. Streets is the classic road map, Satellite shows aerial imagery — handy for checking a property's surroundings, lot boundaries, or distance to the beach — and Outdoors adds terrain detail. Light and Dark are minimal styles that stay easy on the eyes, and Auto (match theme) follows your light/dark theme setting automatically.

And just below the Search Defaults card, the Hidden Brokers card lets you exclude specific brokers' listings from your search results entirely — useful if there are sources you never work with.

Set your defaults once, and let Mercala open the way you work.