I suspect the NWMLS will offer free realtor.com uploads again for members (or figure out some way to make an exception for them to keep their feed since annoying the vendors is probably less problematic than annoying brokers would be). It should be interesting…

Chris is correct – the fee is per data download agreement, which is with the designated broker only. The company where Justin works has 3 download agreements that I’m aware of, so vendors associated with his company would pay a total of $90/month to the NWMLS. That covers all the agents in all 4 offices. I’m one of those vendors and have several agents as clients. I’ve asked those agents to split this new cost with the broker. The only reason Justin’s vendor might ask for the full fee is if he has only one client in Justin’s office. I’m faced with that situation in other offices, unfortunately. What else can we do? The good news is that agents in the offices where we couldn’t previously provide service, now have options.

It is ultimately the designated broker’s responsibility to monitor their agents’ websites and other advertising for rules violations, including RESPA, NWMLS, and state law requirements. Unfortunately enforcement is uneven … as the brokers themselves may not understand the rules or their intent. It will only get worse as there are new requirements and new data available for display. Justin, I recommend that if you see violations, contact the agent, diplomatically. If it continues to bother you and the agent doesn’t correct the situation, contact the broker. Eventually someone will call NWMLS and get an answer of sorts, though as Courtney saw earlier, it may not be the correct answer!

Robbie, all excellent questions! Wish I knew the answer to any one of them.

Ultimately, the NWMLS is controlled by the brokers, so the concerns of the public, agents, and IDX vendors are secondary to those of the brokers (I wish the “rest of us” had a bigger say but those are the breaks). I wonder what the motivations for the change were? Do the big brokers (a/k/a the ones on the NWMLS board) want to place smaller brokers at a disadvantage? Is it to make up for the lost revenue from agents leaving the industry? To slow down the traffic growth of the Zillows of the world?

The mls existed for many years before the public could see portions of it…so that is clearly not the purpose of an mls. That it is perceived as that really angers them, because that is really not who they are.

You don’t seem to care what an mls “is”…only how you can benefit from “it”. So we can’t really have a discussion about it. It’s like thinking the sun exists for you to get a tan…it may do that, but that is not its purpose…only its purpose to you at that moment in time.

To ask for the benefit of interacting with something as big as an mls system, you should at least take some time to understand what it actually is.

The mls does not monitor sites that don’t have IDX, so that becomes irrelevant. It’s not their jurisdiction if there is no property search feature.

There are HUGE violations all the time. Not all IDX providers even know the rules, like you can’t say “search the mls”. There are more rules than most can keep up with. That is why the mls has always favored a few vendors doing a lot of sites vs. a lot of vendors doing one or two. That limits the risk to each Broker Member.

Of course they could cut back on all the “rules”…that would help a lot with monitoring costs

That is where the bigger companies, with the most mls votes on the change, benefit at the expense of the smaller company. In many ways it can be viewed as an anti-trust violation to put the smaller companies at a disadvantage, and even out of business.

Jan talked about this before when “they” voted to drop the feed to Realtor.com Seemed to me at that time that Windermere had more than 50% voting power and JLS plus Windermere could pretty much put everyone else out of business. An MLS should not be allowed to function that way. Jan knows this better than I. Maybe she’ll update the “voting” lineup.

Would make more sense to charge every agent site $5 for the feed than one company $30 for 1,000 agent site feeds and another $30 for 1 agent site feed. The impetus for change often comes from the smaller companies, so boycotting them should not be allowed, and hiding the boycott in these small changes to benefit the bigger companies is, well…scandalous.

What kind of mind thinks $30 for 1,000 agents total and $30 for 1 agent = “fair”? The monopoly is getting out of control in all aspects of real estate.

As an IDX vendor the way I understand the new rules so far is that there is a $30/month fee for each broker level vendor contract. Brokers (principle brokers, designated brokers, managing brokers, owners – whatever you want to call them). The data feed at the broker level can be used for the agents under that broker (framed per NWMLS wording in a co-branded site). An individual agent is not allowed to procure an IDX feed per their rules and that has not changed.

So the fee is per owner that wishes to submit a contract. That fee is for the multiple offices and multiple agents under that broker. Not a fee for each individual agent. So if I have 40 users in a particular brokerage using a product I will be charged $30 to maintain that contract. Not $30/agent.

Not all MLS data requires a fee for the vendor to access, and the fee that NWMLS is imposing is certainly not the highest out there.

C’mon.

Other than the data that’s being entered into the MLS, what else about a website really needs to be monitored that isn’t already a risk to the IDX provider? Not only has the MLS forced responsibility onto IDX providers, but I can’t tell you how many times I had to report (1) particular agent for putting his/her personal web address in a MLS entered property description for real estate listings I was sending to a client. It took over a month for the MLS to even do anything about it.

Found another agent who posted his web address in a photo gallery directing visitors to go to his website to see what a visitor thought they would be seeing by clicking on the deceiving image title. Those are IDX infractions. Curious to know what amount of effort really goes into monitoring IDX and how IDX really makes their job more difficult.

I would think the more websites out there without IDX create more monitoring than those with.

Again, NWMLS has always been way to protective over the data compared to any other MLS I’ve worked with over the last 7+ years I’ve been doing Internet marketing stuff. This, charging extra for each feed is a joke.

I know you guys “get it,” and you prove it by linking to your competitors. You get more when you give more. Being a resource is a revolutionary concept that has driven many companies to success, and especially our younger generation knows that best.

rant, rant, rant. Sorry:) The principle frustrates me. New fee, no explanation…

…and since they’re supposed to be monitoring and providing accurate data to the public, I certainly think the public, and it’s members, should have a majority say in how decisions are made.