Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen consumers take control of their home shopping experience by conducting their own research on the Internet.
Many first time home buyers departed from the path taken by their parents in the ’70′s & ’80′s, where they would walk into a real estate agency’s office and sit with an agent to discuss what kind of house they were looking for.
The typical experience by many was to, first, become financially qualified with the in-house mortgage staff, review property listings within their purchase range and then go out in the agent’s car to see properties. Under this business model, Brokers and Agents controlled access to what was once considered proprietary information, property listings.
Access to this exclusive data was granted to member Brokers and their associates and distributed, first, in book form and then, with the advent of the computer, by terminal access. The Multiple Listing Service was the private source Brokers and Agents had to property listings posted by its member in specific geographic territories (ex: Long Island Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service).
However, in a recent announcement, Brooklyn MLS and StreetEasy.com Aim for Transparency [The Real Deal], Brooklyn’s largest Multiple Listing Service, managed by the Brooklyn Board of Realtors, have partnered with StreetEasy.com to place 2,500 property listings on its site. It was heralded as
A new era in Transparency for real estate in the Borough!
While this appears to be a shift in the board’s policy, it could be more of a response to the competitive market environment its larger members find themselves in.
Ever since the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors regarding its Internet Listings Display Policy [Redfin], local mutliple listing services began losing their stranglehold on its property listings databases across the country.
But how much of an impact is the announcement going to have on the Brooklyn real estate market?
In a recent study of the Global 100 real estate web portals 2009, StreetEasy.com didn’t rank in the top 100. The number 1 real estate web portal in the world is Realtor.com, with Zillow.com ranking 3rd and Trulia.com ranking 8th.
So why would the Brooklyn Board of Realtors decide to post their listings on a site that lacks global exposure for its members property listings?
My guess is as follows:
- StreetEasy.com is paying a significant sum of money for BBOR’s property listing content, which it desperately needs to compete with NYTimes.com/realestate and ResidentialNYC.com (both powered by Trulia.com)
- BBOR is experiencing consolidation amongst its own member ranks diminishing the size of its board.
- The majority of Brooklyn’s property listings are being fed to Trulia.com and Zillow.com direct from Brokerage Office Web sites, such as CorleyRE.com, and distributed via syndication around the Internet at $0.00 cost to Brokerage Agencies.
- Increased local exposure of Brooklyn property listings to high net worth visitor audience to StreetEasy.com, which primarily showcase Manhattan property listings [see StreetEasy.com site data measurement here.]
As a real estate broker in Brooklyn, we are witnessing an unprecedented market shift that will change the composition of competitive market value amongst Brooklyn’s brokerage agencies. These are the last days of the Multiple Listing Service as Brokers and Agents know it. You heard it here first.
* This post was originally published at http://mybrooklynreport.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/is-this-the-death-of-mls/
I couldn’t agree more about the value that MLS has demonstrated in creating a marketplace for licensed professionals to collaborate in arranging sales for property listings by member firms.
But there are quite a number of brokerage firms in the urban market I’m in that have operated in the business format suggested in the article and are having a tough time adjusting to the changing market realities, which are also occurring during a severe downturn in sales of new and existing homes.
Even some of the largest brokerage agencies in New York City are evaluating new operating models, ones in which don’t view the licensed associate as a vital partners in the growth of their real estate business.
And even as Realtor.com has managed to hold its top position in the global rankings, it faces serious competitive threats from Zillow and Trulia who do not place membership/association requirements on real estate professionals in order to place their listings on their web sites. Nor do they have the costs associated with being a part of MLS.
How does the industry respond to this new competitive reality when they depend so much on the revenues to operate MLS systems around the country that may be losing its grip on its coveted proprietary information: Property Listings?
Everyone I know in the business is really beginning to take a hard look at the MLS factor in their business.
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