A few years back, I watched MLSNI turn off their consumer facing website because members took the stance that this was reducing broker/agent centric website exposure. Ironically, seemingly overnight, this almost perfectly coincided with the flash flood of Syndication Portals (Trulia, Zillow, GoogleBase, etc).
At first, the industry was very apprehensive to giving their listings away for free. Over time they eased up, and saw how they can leverage these advertising vehicles. In all essence, they are just a more refined online classifieds model (such as the newspapers, but focused). More and more of these advertising sites began to appear, somewhat diluting the benefits, increasing the work for exposure (see Andrews Syndication Article to battle this issue) and calling more attention to what was really going on. These sites were filling a critical void in the consumer marketplace.
Recently, there has been some critiquing about the practices of some of the advertising sites. I (personally) feel that this is just the simmering stage of what is really going on. The question of why hasn’t the MLSs step up to the plate and provided these robust search sites, a proven example being HAR.
In fact, two months back, when I attended the Clareity Conference, I was very pleased to learn that many of the larger MLSs are either revamping their public search sites or being requested to turn them back on and/or developing them from scratch.
So, that lengthy babble was really intended to ask for feedback from the audience regarding if the industry has come full circle to where we were prior to these third party advertising sites, but now with much more of an understanding of what is needed from the consumer point of view? Has keeping up with the Joneses turned into more overhead than the standard agent/broker can handle? Should the MLSs start to fill in for some of this technological needs, very similar to how some of the parent franchises (REMax, Prudential, etc) have begun to provide turn key solutions for their franchisees?
What do you think? Bring it on!
Part of me agrees with the idea that MLSs should provide more robust solutions for agents and brokers, but then the other part of me says that isn’t really their job. I think that there are certainly very good solutions out there that can provide robust IDX searches using the already existing MLS data feeds.
Of course, that only covers search. As far as listing aggregation goes, that is much tougher. Because their are so many potential outlets for the listings, it is hard to create a system that can disperse the data to all of them accurately and efficiently. I think that there is always going to be some work to be done by agents. There is a lot more that MLSs could do, but agents and brokers can do more, too.
This doesn’t even take into account those to whom the data really belongs– the owners of the property. They are really the ones who can determine where it can/should be displayed. I am finding that, believe it or not, there are sellers who don’t want their listing data in certain places.
In the end, I don’t think there is ever going to be a one-stop turn-key solution. While there is room for improvement, there is always going to be a bit of a patch-work system out there.
Dan – thanks for the feedback. Playing some devils advocate here — if the MLS (being the most upstream point of listings) were the ultimate public portal, would you still see the need for a new advertising website to appear every month?
Look at the numbers: http://blog.realtors.org/crt/2008/03/12/the-numbers-are-in/
It’d be nice if a consumer didnt have to go to a half dozen sites to make an informed decision, or simply to have all the data points.
Chris -
If all local MLS’ were ready, willing and able to provide the best, most comprehensive source of real estate data for the consumers, then we wouldn’t have an issue with 3rd party sites.
What we have are the Zillows, Googles, Cyberhomes and Trulias out-maneuvering MLS’ technologically as well as positioning themselves to offer more information – including foreclosures, school data, demographics, eventually unrepresented sellers – so that one of them likely may be “the one” place for consumers.
I’d like to think that the new data agreement will help with this -getting the information to the aggregators is one thing. Keeping it updated is another.
>> …why hasn’t the MLSs step up to the plate and provided these robust search sites…
I’d be curious to know of the cost of implementing a site such as HAR’s. It appears that they have around 27,000 members — so, certainly, it’s financially achievable at that scale. Is it possible to develop such a technology platform if the association only has 5,000 members? Or 1,000 members?
>> …many of the larger MLSs are either revamping their public search sites or being requested to turn them back on and/or developing them from scratch…
Again — I agree that it would be great to see robust search sites on the association level — but I wonder if it may only be possible for the largest associations among us.
>> Should the MLSs start to fill in for some of this technological needs, very similar to how some of the parent franchises (REMax, Prudential, etc) have begun to provide turn key solutions for their franchisees?
Yes — and to help some of the smaller associations make this work, perhaps the MLS vendors should step up to the plate and compete with each other by creating some great public facing web sites that associations could be evaluating when choosing an MLS vendor.
Give the public the best information possible. Consumers are no longer happy with what you tell them, they want to check it out for themselves. If they go out and get their data and it says what you are telling them…you win! If they get bad information from some other site (I’m thinking the one with the “Z”), then you have to argue with your client at the kitchen table…BAD!
The public is going to get it one way or another…we should want them to have the best data possible so their decisions are the best possible decisions for them. It will make your job easier!
Rob
I used to be firmly in the camp in favor of public-facing MLS sites. Now, I’m on the fence. Bob Hale’s pitch seems compelling on the surface but would the brokers there be better off with great APIs allowing them to tap the MLS more deeply and easily? Also, HAR.com and some other MLS sites syndicate out to Google, Zillow, etc., and build search position by linking back to HAR.com. Why not link back to the brokers directly and build their search position? How valuable is a click-through on a listing back to the listing agent? What does the listing agent do with that “lead”? How useful is that traffic? What’s the ROI? I don’t believe the presentations to date have gone that far in analyzing the end result.
A compelling model for MLSs could be Roost, which leverages the power of IDX to drive traffic back to the brokers. In terms of Brian Larson’s paper on this topic recently, Roost is a pass-through site instead of a destination like HAR.com. The pass-through’s purpose is to drive traffic back to the broker. The purpose of HAR.com is to keep the consumer on their site.
Another approach I’ve been considering recently is that the MLS could play a role in consumer-facing search by positioning their site as the “consumer reports” of real estate data, with the agents and brokers being the experts. This would allow the agents and brokers to brand their content, whether it be listings, expert analysis of the market, staging, etc. Unlike so many other efforts today to hide the brand of the broker and agent, such a site could be a platform for promoting the brands through expertise.
The question of public-facing MLS sites is more complex than some of the arguments to date have acknowledged and I agree with Brian Larson that we should be doing more research and experimentation with a variety of models to see what works and what doesn’t.
Michael – this is the dilema/conundrum I have. If the consumer is going to a search site for better data/options. What is the real benefit of the Broker Site?
it then sort of becomes an expensive digital brochure, that _tries_ to achieve a good search interface. I always thought, a model like Prudential, but applied to the MLS would be stellar. If a consumer comes to the MLS tagged as _your_ client (ie http://www.mybrokersite.com) they get a broker themed site – and inquiries go to the broker. If they come directly to the MLS site (har.com) they then get a transparent site where inquireis go to the listing agent.
I think thats the win-win for everyone.
Michael – One thing I don’t like about the pass-through concept of Roost is that it provides a rather disjointed end-user experience by popping up every property in a new window. Not very fun for the user, in my mind.
Chris – I think you touch on a great concept – leveraging the size (and thus budget) of the MLS to provide great search technology to brokers. That seems like it would be a great natural extension for HAR, now that they have developed the technology. It would be of great benefit to the brokers, and wouldn’t take too much additional technical enhancement.