MLS future: Bring a big gun
Inman blog scan
By Inman News, Tuesday, August 26, 2008.Rob Hahn, in a post titled, "To Hunt Elephants, You Need an Elephant Gun," discusses one of the hottest topics in real estate: the multiple listing service of the future. There has been much discussion already about the MLS and what it might look like in a few years.
Hahn tackles the elephant in the room: money, and he suggests that major MLS innovations can be too costly for small-market MLSs but are achievable when the MLSs serve a larger base. He suggests that the MLS of the future "will not be a membership organization like (the National Association of Realtors) or a local Realtor association" and will be operated more like a typical company.
--The Notorious R.O.B.
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Submitted by Danilo Bogdanovic on August 26, 2008 - 3:06pm.
IMHO, the "MLS 5.0" has the potential to be a very bad and dangerous thing for real estate agents, 95% of brokers and the real estate industry in general.
Check out my post over at agentgenius.com regarding the potential negative impact it could have - http://agentgenius.com/?p=3601.
Danilo Bogdanovic
Real Estate Consultant, Realtor
http://www.LoudounScene.com
http://www.LoudounForeclosures.com
Submitted by Jeff Manson on August 26, 2008 - 4:16pm.
Great article. You should check it out. The Notorious R.O.B. always has a thoughtful perspective :-)
Jeff Manson
American Dream Realty
Kauai real estate search
Honolulu real estate
Submitted by Christopher Ashe on August 26, 2008 - 5:25pm.
It is my belief that the MLS as we know it has a very short life expectancy. If fact I wouldn't be surprised if it no longer exists 10 years from now. For more details see my post "The Changing real Estate World" at: http://www.coachunlimited.dreamhosters.com/?cat=3
Christopher Ashe
Learning Unlimited
Litchfield, CT
Submitted by Dennis Pease on August 26, 2008 - 9:53pm.
Notorious R.O.B. is a good read and though provoking. Most of us don't really want to see big changes in the current localized MLS's and I especially don't want to see Open MLS, but I agree with Christopher that I expect a short shelf life for our current MLS's and in fact I would be surprised if it 10 years.
Dennis Pease
RE/MAX Integrity
Eugene Real Estate
Florence Oregon Real Estate
Submitted by Adrian Sherwood on August 27, 2008 - 7:04am.
The MLS can not only exist but thrive. What happens when you remove the constraints of money and time? You have a model capable of unseating the powers that be. A model designed by a little guy for the little guy, ain't life grand?
Submitted by Duke Lane on August 28, 2008 - 2:18pm.
I'm frankly at a loss to understand exactly why an agent (who is typically licensed to sell real estate in only one state) needs to have access to "raw" listing data in other states, and especially in states clear across the country.
If a California agent wants to know what's for sale in Connecticut, can't s/he simply look it up on Realtor.com and then contact a cooperating agent - the listing agent, perhaps, or at least someone from the listing brokerage, or even a colleague from, say, the CRS Council? After all, how am I - licensed and living in Texas - going to advise someone about a home for sale somewhere in New England? And exactly when am I going to schedule showings with them?
I'm certainly of the opinion that I should have access to all of the listings I can sell. The idea of having over 900 MLSes in just 50 states - and multiple MLSes in postage stamp-sized states in New England - is as ridiculous as one big national MLS. On the other hand, one MLS per state - one repository for all the properties that I'm licensed to sell - makes perfect sense. (Even one for all of New England, which combined is less that 1/4 of Texas!)
In that case, there is an economy of scale such that the budgetary issues - the ability to afford new technologies, etc. - brought to the fore by Rob's article are effectively solved. At the same time, it serves all of those who are licensed to sell the listings it has. (Those from other states can continue to do as they do now: refer the business to someone who knows the market. Real estate is, after all, "local," isn't it?)
The idea that any MLS can charge $50K for an IDX data feed - to its own constituents?!? - gives rise to the question of how much the SOLE data source can charge (as Danilo raised the question: only the largest brokerages could afford it, and the rest necessarily go by the wayside). One has to wonder if anti-trust laws would even allow such an animal.