Statewide MLS issues heating up in California

Gregg Larson, CEO for real estate consulting company Clareity, said California Association of Realtors officials did not allow the distribution of a report, prepared by his company, to attendees of a multiple listing service issues meeting today at the association's annual conference in Anaheim.

Association officials were not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon.

The Realtor group is weighing options for a major MLS transformation in the state. Under consideration is whether to pursue an aggregation of real estate data for the state or to create a unified statewide MLS. Members of the Realtor group's state board of directors are scheduled to meet on Saturday to consider these options.

A briefing paper prepared by an MLS Working Group suggests three possible choices based on these two categories:

• Should California Realtors pursue the development of a statewide aggregation system that maintains separate MLS systems?
• Should California Realtors pursue the development of a statewide MLS?
• Should California Realtors pursue the development of an aggregation system through the development of a single database that could also be used as a statewide MLS at a local association's option?

Larson's paper (view paper here) proposed a series of steps that the association's brokers and directors could take as an alternative approach to the issues. Some of these recommendations include: "Facilitate statewide open and free data standards for listings and membership data," "standardize statewide MLS rules and regulations," and "facilitate the creation of a 'virtual' statewide aggregation of MLS active and comparable data that can be accomplished using existing infrastructure and technology by existing entities" -- namely groups that have already embarked on regional data-sharing or MLS consolidation.

Larson, who was not in attendance at the association's conference but had employees in attendance, said that the paper was intended to be constructive and he didn't expect that the association would not allow its distribution. "They were pulling them from peoples' hands and putting them in the trash," he said. "The thing that is so bizarre is they were stopping people from getting a printed copy of the paper when they didn't even know the contents of the paper. This was just proposed for their consideration."

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