Wed 18 Oct 2006
Realtor.com, which displays 3.9 million homes for sale and has 7 million unique visitors each month, will lose the Northwest Multiple Listing Service’s feed at the end of their contract. According to sources at NWMLS, the reason why the feed will be stopped is that a majority of the Board of Directors felt that it was inappropriate for the NWMLS to provide a service to a for-profit organization that is outside of their sphere.
Apparently, there was some dissent from a minority of the Board, but the majority felt that it was an inappropriate use of copyrighted data.
Realtor.com was already at a disadvantage because Windermere Real Estate has never allowed their listings to appear there via the NWMLS (though individual agents could buy an ad or webpage there and post their listings.) But now, with this move, Realtor.com will become even more irrelevant to local real estate buyers and sellers.
Realtor.com will finish out its contract through Spring, and then be discontinued, unless it goes up again for a vote or they reach some other compromise.
NWMLS serves over 2000 companies and 27,000 individual agents in Washington and Oregon.
October 18th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I think they are making a huge mistake. I encourage my clients to actively search for their next house on Realtor.com and help fill in the gaps with my own MLS information and expertise. Simply yanking open information back into the backrooms of brokerages stinks badly of not giving a damn about consumers.
Ask yourself… Are brokerages hiding information from consumers for the benefit of consumers? Or for the benefit of the brokerages? Time to wake up and smell the 21st century. You just don’t hide information anymore.
Ethics and hidden information are uncomfortable bedfellows.
All this does is force the issue to come to a head sooner. If it’s not going to be Realtor.com, it’s going to be an eBay.com, or an Amazon.com making a internet based advertisement for property for $10 a pop. Sellers should be outraged if their home isn’t advertised on the internet in an easily accessable and searchable manner.
It’s too late to shut the door on information feeds once they are out. I doubt buyers are going to want to return to going to Realtors on bended knee to find out what homes are on the market.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
[…] Marlow @ 360digest.com reports that the NWMLS will suspend it’s feed to Realtor.com when the current contract ends in next Spring. […]
October 18th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
I might agree with you except that in our state, the Northwest MLS operates a public website that is accessible by all, that lists every single listing online, with each agents contact information in plain view, plus even has a link to our personal website.
This is more about giving away, for free, information that belongs to each agent and brokerage.
By giving Realtor.com free content, you’re making it stronger and more powerful, perhaps at the expense of taking away strength and power from your own personal or company website.
If Realtor.com funneled the listings directly to the listing agent or to the agent or office’s website, perhaps it would be different. Instead, Realtor.com sells banner ads to other competing agents and makes money off that kind of advertising. Why should the NWMLS and the member brokers be obligated to supply content to a portal site who sells advertising?
The argument that consumers want limitless dissemination of this information is specious, as the listing is widely available on 100’s of broker sites across the state, broker sites who have an approved IDX feed from the MLS. Perhaps if Realtor.com was operated as a non-profit national clearinghouse of listings, we could talk national MLS. But as long as it stays a commercial real estate portal there will be an unwillingness by some brokers to share their personal data and listings.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
[…] Marlow Harris, famous female real estate blogger and Realtor in Seattle points out a change that the NWMLS (Washington State’s MLS) plans to make with their feed to Realtor.com. Realtor.com, which displays 3.9 million homes for sale and has 7 million unique visitors each month, will lose the Northwest Multiple Listing Service’s feed at the end of their contract. […]
October 19th, 2006 at 5:34 am
I always thought the Canadians had the right approach. No advertisements competing or distracting to our home buyers. No links to pull them away. Check out the official gateway to all Canadian MLS information that is sponsored by The Canadian Real Estate Association at www.mls.ca
October 19th, 2006 at 8:35 am
[…] Realtor.com takes a step closer to Trulia October 19, 2006 Come spring, Realtor.com won’t have access to the Northwest MLS, so only houses from agents who pay to participate will show up. Trulia.com, a site the “crawls” broker web sites to fill its database, will probably have more listings from western Washington from that point going forward (the NWMLS still has the most). […]
October 19th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Tom, thanks for sharing that link to the Canadian MLS. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I mentioned a non-profit national clearing house of listings, sponsored by the NAR. If our local MLS can do a public site that is advertising-free, why can’t all the others do so too, then supply a feed to a non-profit NAR-sponsored public site. A national site would do away with the argument that the industry is hoarding data and shuts the critics up who are demanding a national MLS.
I can’t figure out why NAR partnered with a profit-making corporation…. I would rather pay a litte higher dues and have it be a helpful, impartial non-profit organization instead of the corporate, commercial sell-out trade organization that it is.
That being said, I am still a voluntary member and will continue to be so, as it is the only nationally-recognized professional organization that we have and because of that, membership is mandatory to be considered a real estate professional. However, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t change a few things!
October 19th, 2006 at 9:15 am
[…] It sounds like realtor.com will become basically irrelevant in buying and selling real estate in this area. For more information, go to: NWMLS to pull feed to realtor.com Filed under: Housing, NAR, Real Estate, MLS | By: Allan | […]
October 19th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
I am not in the part of the country. But I wish our mls would follow suit. I don’t know why NAR partnered with them in the first place. I have had a bad experience with using them, and if they weren’t around the consumer would still find us via idx etc.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
If there was a group of Opportunities Most Squandered, the realtor.com boondoggle would top the list.
We agents gave them the keys to the kingdom, and they blew it. They could have kept up with the fast-moving progress of the internet, but instead they’re too busy making money off us.
Think of all the other websites that have blown right by, yet you still have to pay extra to put your own comments on realtor.com? If you don’t, you get a dry, computerized version that couldn’t be more boring?
No videos and no links allowed? They could have put together a smokin’ website that kept agents in front of the consumer - instead, when an better alternative comes out, it will leave agents trailing behind.
Google or somebody like them will set up a website like loopnet and make realtor.com extinct.
Good riddance to realtor.com. Their demise won’t come fast enough - they blew it - with our money, and our NAR’s permission.
Good for NWMLS to take matters into their own hands, that’s smart.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:47 am
Ah ha starting to make more sense, and I can see where I was wrong. I’m Connecticut based and didn’t know that NWMLS already had a public website with all the listing available. We don’t have anything like that in Connecticut and Realtor.com is really the best scource of information available to the public in Connecticut. If the Connecticut MLS pulled the plug on the feed to Realtor.com, it would be like switching the lights out on the consumers.
Someone will defintely be setting up a national listing service in the next few years though, of that I am sure.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:23 am
I’ve never been personally fond of realtor.com for all of the reasons cited above, but there are a few points being missed here.
1. Realtor.com gets the press. National stories about real estate always mention the site as a starting point for buyers.
2. Right or wrong, the public perceives realtor.com as “our” national site.
3. When we sign a listing agreement, we promise to market the property. Having it on realtor.com provides national exposure, even if the listing is a “dry, computerized version” it’s simply giving our listings additional exposure and it’s totally free if you don’t want the extended services.
4. For the past 7 years brokers could choose to include their listings at realtor.com and NWMLS provided them. To the best of my knowledge only Windermere opted out, but brokers had the choice. For 7 years they CHOSE to be included at realtor.com. This service has been provided free by our MLS, systems are in place to continue the service, yet thousands of brokers will now need to pay to upload these very same listings.
This decision by the board was not about realtor.com. It was about the big real estate companies deciding which services should be provided by our MLS to its members. The big companies don’t want to make it any easier for the independent brokers to compete. I find it telling that this decision comes on the heels of a decision by Windermere to cooperate with Google.com.
October 20th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Hats off to the NWMLS and especially the brokers who pushed and supported the MLS directors in making this courageous move! NAR made a big mistake when it allowed Realtor.com to grab this huge pie (not just a piece) and then idly sat by while agents and brokerages lost the bulk of any contact information. Sellers hire listing agents to sell their homes, and the listing agent knows the property better than anyone else. It is nuts to remove the agent’s contact info from the listing info, either through Realtor.com or any other IDX. We owe it to our owner clients to keep that information with the listing.
October 20th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Thank you, Jan. That is a very interesting perspective. Now that you put it like that, I can see that perhaps I need to rethink this whole issue. If this is indeed the way the larger companies are trying to shut-out the smaller ones, then yes, this decision must be reversed immediately.
Perhaps the NAR should rethink its relationship with MOVE and Realtor.com. How much money is it making for the Association? If the answer is “not much”, it should move from a profit-making website that sells ads and enhanced listings, to a simpler site with ALL the listings, all presented in the same manner, with no outside advertising. Sort of what our NWMLS website is. Simple, basic, giving everyone access to all the listings and totally non-commercial.
That would put everyone on the same level playing field and silence critics asking for a national MLS and trying to turn it into a “public utility”.
October 20th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Marlow et all,
I think your original thought process is correct. R.com is not helping anyone except themselves. The more the agents push traffic to R.com the more the agents pay for the exposure.
As far as big broker little broker goes I feel you should rethink that part. There is a cost for the mls to deal with sending of data to R.com and for them to deal with the constant issues arising from R.com. If the majority of the mls wants to use those resources to focus on other lagging issues vs dealing with R.com I think that is the right decision by the board. For the small brokers to feel the mls is a welfare system is not helping anyone. I remember when voicemail first hit the region and it was expensive and only the large brokers could afford it and they spent millions on it. The mls turned around and provided it to the small brokers who couldn’t afford it. If you cant afford to keep your doors open and be competitive on your own 2 feet maybe you shouldn’t be in the game. If you want your listings on R.com write a check.
October 20th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
I also don’t practice in Washington (I’m in CA) so NWMLS’s move won’t affect me at all. However, I’m always interested in the soap opera love/hate relationship between NAR, Realtor.com, local realtor boards, local MLS’s, brokerages, and agents.
Classic example: Here in the Bay Area, our MLS (called REIL), following NAR’s guidelines, has strict rules against displaying sold data. REIL, like many MLS’s, provides a feed to Realtor.com…which now displays sold data. They appear to be able to get away with it because their sold data comes from a 3rd party aggregator, not from the MLS itself.
Personally, I think the prohibition on displaying sold data is pretty lame, so I have no problem with Realtor.com flouting the rules. However, I’m pretty certain that if I tried to pull a fast one like that myself, I’d be feathered and tarred pretty quickly.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Marlow,
As you know I disagree with you on many issues. You are completely right about this though. Thanks for your insight.
- Trevor
October 21st, 2006 at 4:59 pm
It’s about time!
Why should we (the brokers who own the NWMLS) allow access to a monopoly like Realtor.com and not to anyone/everyone else? I realize the the MLSs want to protect their membership and income - and should want to protect their business. The NWMLS is one of the relatively few MLS across the country that is not owned by a Board of Realtors - and should not be making special deals with them or anyone else.
If anyone wants to search the NWMLS, they can always go to www.YourEastsideBroker.com
October 21st, 2006 at 8:54 pm
[…] And now Marlow Harris at 360Digest reports that Realtor.com is about to completely lose its MLS feed from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service because the region’s MLS states, “a majority of the Board of Directors felt that it was inappropriate for the NWMLS to provide a service to a for-profit organization that is outside of their sphere.” […]
October 22nd, 2006 at 8:36 pm
[…] NWMLS to Pull Feed from Realtor.com - Marlow Harris - 360° […]
November 4th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
While Marlow and others make some very good points here about the relationship between Move/Realtor.com and Realtors/NAR (which Move seems unconcerned with so far), let me just point out one more thing (with perhaps short-term effects on these decisions) to go with Jan’s notes above.
Go to http://www.google.com/ and type in “seattle homes”. Do you see a link or two to Realtor.com showing up on the first page? Are there links to NWMLS on the first page? This is where a good chunk of your Internet-using consumers will look first, and if you’re not making some effort to have your listings appearing where the consumers are looking, then what does that say about your obligation to advertise that property listing so as to get the most exposure and ultimately the best deal for your seller?
This is not to invalidate the other perfectly good issues raised herein. There are definitely a lot of concerns about whether Move exists more to benefit Realtors or itself, which will only grow more interesting in the short term. But some questions to hold behind all of this are whether the consumer will care about those details, and how well is the consumer being served?
January 12th, 2007 at 10:07 am
[…] Realtor.com: This is the old granddaddy of consumer home search sites. Their database is populated through feeds from the various MLS’s. San Diego’s Sandicor participates, but not all local or regional MLS’s do. The problem I have found with Realtor.com is that their data is not always refreshed daily. I used to accuse them of taking weekends off, which they in fact may. As a member of Sandicor, all of my listings are automatically “swept” to the site. However, as a subscriber to their enhanced listing feature, I must wait for my new listings to appear before I can log on to the system and add enhanced text, photos and visual tour links. Sometimes I find that my listings are showing within hours, yet I have often had to wait several days to see them represented on the site. This morning, Realtor.com showed 89 active listings versus the 82 actual MLS listings, the difference likely being a result of this delay in processing. […]
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:51 am
[…] What was even more interesting is looking at data from the Seattle area, where John L. Scott and Windermere have spent tons of money on their listing portals and have excluded even Realtor.com from displaying listings. In other words, John L. Scott and Windermere are pretty much the only game in town, seemingly, but yet the data (again, no link, just recollection) showed that the most visited real estate site in Seattle is Craig’s List. Neither John L. Scott nor Windermere were even in the top ten. What’s that mean? I think it means that portals are critical. Consumers want to go to a site they think is independent and they don’t see the broker or franchise portals in that light. […]
September 29th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
After waht Realtor.com has recently done to Active Rain, I couldn’t care less what happens to them. I’m happy they lost hteir feed.
October 8th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I think Realtor.com’s only purpose is to take money from Realtors. The showcase product is a scam. I think Realtor.com should be shut down.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
As a former agent in the Puget Sound area, I personally think that the NWMLS should be investigated under the Sherman Antitrust Act guidelines.
NWMLS is nothing but a bunch of greedy, money-hungry “board members” that offer no real service to agents, only a “venue” to list and see listings.
Actually, I hope that Zillow.com and other websites cause the demise of overpaid, lazy and worthless real estate agents in WA state.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
What a lovely thought. Thanks for you gracious input and visit us again real soon.
October 14th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Including you.
Please hire a professional web designer, also.
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Realtor.com has the big advantage that they have a mery marketable name, so it uses the name of our careers to make money. Maybe we should get some royalties… lol