Don’t get me started on MLS data quality. The data is filled with rookie mistakes like bogus zip codes, incorrect neighborhood assignments and numerous errors of omission. I suppose I should give them some credit for using a RDBMS instead of an Excel spreadsheet or index cards, but I expect better of a professional organization.

I think we can agree that the MLS is supposed to serve it’s members. It’s members are supposed the serve the public. Ergo, the MLS serves the public by proxy. We may not elect the MLS boards, but we are affected by what they decide to do. When policies are enacted that prevent members from serving the public fully, one has to question what the motivation behind it is.

Everybody,

I think folks need to realize the internet is naturally choatic. If the listing is part of an IDX feed, then the intent of the listing agent is that it was meant to be shared as far and as wide as possible. If you want total control of the listing, then don’t put it in the MLS, and don’t allow the MLS to share it via IDX. On the net, control and exposure don’t mix. Do we really want the MLS, to become the RIAA?

Once it’s IDX-able, the car is leaving the garage (it’s still in the city though). Unless MLSes want to force IDX vendors and brokers to create DRM like retrictions on display listings, they are better off accepting that it’s practically futile to control a listings display & distribution once it enters the IDX feed. And if the listing is put up on Craigslist, Google, or Trulia, it’s “Dude Where’s my Car?”

At the end of the day, if it’s your listing and you put it in the MLS IDX for all to see, and another broker uses your listing to gain business (regardless if they follow MLS policy or not), your still going to get the seller’s commission if they use your listing to find a buyer.

The primary purpose of a listing is to sell it as quickly as possible at a price that the seller will accept and a buyer is willing to offer, not to advertise yourself. Like a car dealer, you don’t get paid for unsold inventory. The listing creates the most value for your business when you take it off the market. This is probably the thinking behind big brokers allowing small brokers access to their inventory via the MLS. All listings must go off the lot, before the 2007 models come into the showroom!

I can understand why Broker A is upset when Broker B uses their listing to gain business. Broker A lost out on a free marketing opportunity. Then again, all is fair in love, war, and business. Perhaps, maybe without Broker B’s action, Broker A never would’ve sold that listing?

The “selective opt-out” policy is great way to invite DOJ lawyers to your dinner table. At it’s current rate, the NAR will make more enemies than Microsoft did in the 1990’s.

Heathly “coopetition” is what the industry needs to thrive in the internet era. It’s a strange new world that probably makes the old gaurd very uncomfortable, but it’s the world we now live in.

At least to me, this would pretty clearly hamper the ability of Redfin, Zip, and LocalDiscountBrokerageB to compete in any realistic manner.

The current NAR policy, effected I believe within hours of the DOJ initiating action, I believe, is a “blanket opt-out” provision. ie. Coldwell Banker can either allow or disallow _all_ its competitors to show its listings, not on a one-by-one basis. So CB has to decide if the danger of giving access to their listings to the Redfins of the world (ie empowering a new business model) outweighs the benefits of having its listings displayed in more places in general. Thus far, I believe most big brokerages have decided in favor of the latter.

The “selective opt-out” policy is, I put to you, another example (see my posts #5 and #9 above) of our antiquated thinking that our industry should protect its way of doing things by putting the data under lock and key, rather than competing on the basis of skills and service. Instead of finding Redfin an ominous threat and trying to shut them down by restricting their access to the data (read “selective opt-out” ), why don’t we simply welcome the competition, up our game, compete on skills and service, and let the market decide who wins? In that world, we probably end up with a portion of the market going the “discount” route, and another, probably significantly larger portion, continuing to use the high-value-added skills of a full-service broker.

I think we’re completely in agreement. Without your permission, I could no more highlight your listing on the front page of my blog than I could put in our local newspaper with my mug shot beside it. I incorrectly interpreted your remarks in #8 above to mean that you were skeptical about even allowing search results on my web site to show a competing broker’s listing.

As an aside to those who have been trying to figure out how the DOJ suit started and its relevance to this topic, let’s say everyone “opted OUT” of Redfin because they are breaking a rule, or opted out of the “Search the Northwest MLS” on Seattle Times, which also breaks a rule. Is this simply reprimanding a company who is breaking a rule? Is it forcing out the alternative business models who say “Damn the Rule!” because it discourages Innovation and new business models?

I’m siding with the latter at present, because new rules pop up to block these companies, so breaking a rule that stifles competition may be in order…like refusing to sit in the back of a bus. Rule broken, yes…rule needed to be broken, yes.

Change “viewable” to “Featured Home” pulled from the feed and highlighted on the website of another broker. Isn’t that more like putting another broker’s listing in a Homes and Land Ad or in your window display at your office’s site?

“Viewable” as in “comes up in the search results” is a no brainer. But one home showing big as life, on another Broker’s site, is advertising that specific home which is currently against the rules. Marlow’s specific is an excellent example of what I am talking about.

Here in NWMLS they recently made this rule even more stringent, by requiring WRITTEN permission to advertise another Broker’s listing. So the rules are getting tougher in response to these sites, and not more lenient…so far.

See Marlow’s comment. Having a search feature and “advertising a specific home”, is quite a different thing. Stay in the present, Allen. Going back to when…is never a good way to approach a topic when we are talking about innovation and technology.