The coming civil war in real estate
From The Notorious R.O.B. blog
By Notorious R.O.B., Tuesday, November 10, 2009.
On Nov. 6, at roughly 3:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the National Association of Realtors declared war on the rest of the real estate industry. To be fair, NAR probably did not realize that it did so. Judging by the initial responses, it doesn't appear to me that most people see what I saw. But, probably because of my twisted nature and my penchant for focusing on the dark side of human nature, I am predicting nothing short of civil war in the real estate industry going forward unless Realtors Property Resource (or RPR) in its current form is immediately scrapped.
What brings forth such hyperbole?
RPR, or Realtors Property Resource, was a project shrouded in secrecy. Brian Larson's post of October 19th, 2009 is a pretty good pre-unveiling summary of the questions and concerns around RPR. Brian Boero's initial take is a very decent summary of the post-unveiling. But since Brian is a much nicer, much sunnier, much more positive guy than I am, I believe what you'll get from Brian is the "Glass Half Full" vision.
Strap in for the darker vision.
RPR In A Nutshell
I got off the preview webinar on Saturday with my head spinning. With the video choppy, I confess I missed a good 20 minutes at the end, so if anything I write/speculate below is totally incorrect, I'd be happy for corrections.
(UPDATE: The entire webinar/webcast is available here: http://webcast.streamlogics.com/audience/index.asp?eventid=35680788. The RPR Fact Sheet (PDF) is available here: CLICK FOR PDF.)
Based on what I heard -- and I'm going off of notes here since I have neither a transcript nor the webinar recording to review -- RPR is a national database with 140 million property records, both residential and commercial, with the vision of becoming the resource for anything real estate related.
LPS (a division of Fidelity) will provide the base property data -- some 265 million residential and commercial assessment, sales and mortgage records. That is north of 90 percent coverage; through future unspecified investments into an unspecified company (or companies), RPR plans to increase that to 100 percent coverage. On top of that, RPR will add in all of the on-market and off-market data from MLSs, including notes and annotations by individual Realtors, to create what will be the most accurate source of real estate data in the country.
There will also be 850K distressed property records in various stages of foreclosure with complete address, owner, and mortgage info updated every month. It is unclear where this data is coming from.
125K elementary, middle and high school information (both public and private schools) together with detailed data and parent reviews will be available via RPR. I assume one or both of Education.com or Greatschools.net is providing this data; if someone else, that makes things even more interesting.
Neighborhood demographic data (I assume the census, employment, etc., type of data that companies like my former employer Onboard Informatics specialize in) will be provided through RPR. But RPR will also feature psychographic data -- consumer spending habits, consumption habits, etc. -- of the variety available from companies like Nielsen Claritas with its PRIZM product.
Very cool mapping tools will be available through RPR; from what Marty Frame (more on this below) said, it sounded a bit like RPR will offer some level of GIS functionality through RPR.
Oh yeah, and RPR offers some of the coolest, slickest property search, annotation, comparison tools I have seen yet for real estate professionals along with customizable reports including CMAs, property profiles and others.
Finally, RPR will offer a custom AVM (automated valuation model) a la Zillow's Zestimates. Except that RPR will bring in actual MLS data, notes, annotations, and opinions of individual agents to create the Realtor Valuation Model, or RVM. This RVM will be, according to NAR, the gold standard for data accuracy and quality. Then on top of the uber-database, RPR plans on layering on heavy-duty data analytics to slice and dice for even more custom datasets.
I know I'm leaving things out, but the bottom line is that RPR is a dream user interface for Realtors. It's better than anything I've seen from the Big Tech companies like Trulia, Zillow, Roost, HomeGain, Cyberhomes, even Redfin. ...CONTINUED
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Submitted by Dave Gaviglio on November 11, 2009 - 12:30pm.
Amazing. It is about time MLS got challenged to get off their duff and provided something meaningful in these technologically advanced times.
Being a member of MLSPIN and having working in Houston using HAR I found it amusing the commentator finds HAR sub par when I have felt it was so much more informative and advanced than MLSPIN.
Competition is going to be the only motivation to give realtors a better product. We are a captive audience bound to pay no matter what the performance is.
Maybe they can fine tune this product to watch dog the foreclosure sales. It is bad enough that this foreclosure happened on the front side. It hurts everyone. It further erodes the situation when the post foreclosed properties are not marketed properly or to their full potential resulting in further degredation of a weak market. Maybe big brother(NAR/RPR) can come up with a unilateral(nationwide) tool for that.
Clearly the banks are the only ones making money on the situation front and back. Time for a little accounting. It is clear the government is not going to ask for accountability here.
I forget which president said it but one did say something to the likes "There is no true democracy without the occasional civil war."
Submitted by Ruthmarie Hicks on November 12, 2009 - 4:51am.
Although there are some ramifications here - I have to say this: The MLS's need some competition to drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. I call my MLS "Crappatoni." It ONLY functions on Internet Explorer - I am FORCED to add on WINDOZE onto my Mac at my expense in order for it to function. So I'm stuck with an expense and very clunky buggy system when the rest of the world is zooming ahead. What's with that? It's laziness pure and simple. Quite a few agents and brokers in our area are fed up with the excuses that "it can't be done." Of course it can!
Submitted by randye britt on November 12, 2009 - 6:32am.
there is another point to be made beside the technology issue withyour mls. if the nationwide data base is implemented with the addition of the full nationwide tax base the realtor avm will allow a Realtor in rural Alabama to do a bpo in a state which probitis their agents from doing a bpo. all i would need is someone to take a current picture of the subject amd i would have the current mls data as well as the tax records. hmmm, since i would not be selling realestate i would not need another license,i would not be physically in that state so i would not need a business license, mabey this would be a pretty good way to make more money for those of us in states allowing agents to perform bpos, oh well just a thought,
Submitted by Christine Donovan - Costa Mesa Real Estate on November 15, 2009 - 11:41pm.
Rob,
You've made disclaimers, so I'll do my own as well. I haven't looked in to RPR much at all, and your analysis is the most in depth I've read so far, and my comments are based upon it.
That said, given the backend and user interfaces we deal with on MLS, I think this would be a God send.
However, I do see the issues and the reasons for the local MLS to fight tooth and nail, leaving us all in the middle trying to decide which way to go.
www.donovanblatt.com
www.livingcostamesa.com
Submitted by John Rowles on November 17, 2009 - 11:03am.
Of course no one wants to see their Ox get gored. The people who benefit from the inefficient status quo will fight to preserve it.
Here's my disclaimer: I provide a Google-powered real estate search solution for brokers and agents to use on their own Web sites.
The biggest obstacle to innovation and building a better user experience? The MLS and their IDX rules.
Every party that you "seriously doubt" is quietly updating their resume is some form of middleman. The internet is pretty harsh when it comes to middlemen who don't truly bring value or learn to use it to add value.
The balkanized MLS "system" (in quotes b/c system implies organization and consistency) is an anachronism. If NAR/RPR doesn't put it out of its misery, somebody else (Google?) will.
John Rowles
CEO
MainRhode Real Estate Search Technologies LLC
www.mainrhode.com
Submitted by Ed Pattermann on November 17, 2009 - 7:11pm.
I saw the demo of RPR at NAR, and I think
a) it adds a BIG shot in the arm to the NAR Value Proposition that will draw more agents to joining, or staying, in their local associations
b) I applaud NAR for, despite being a large organization, showing entrepreneurship to aggressively jump in front of the fast moving Internet onslaught of websites doing the job, or providing the information, REALTORS should be providing.
c) having been through many technological breakthroughs myself in 35 years, they are inevitable. There are winners and losers. But I am convinced this is a service NAR needs to be at the forefront of, and the rest of the industry WILL find a way to adjust.