Tales from the Techside

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A few days ago Brian Wilson over at the Geek Estate Blog posted an excellent article about Listing Syndication, this prompted me to write a post about Data Standardization because in my crazy way of viewing the universe they are interrelated. What I would like to examine now is the broad syndication of listings and how I believe it should work.

At the Bay East Association of REALTORS we have always felt that the listings belong to the broker and they should be able to distribute them in a manner which is consistent with an individual broker’s business practices. To my perspective I believe that listing distribution should ultimately be controlled by the Broker and within the MLS or a parallel system a Broker should be able discretely define where his or her listings are distributed. This could a check box system or simply choosing from a list of selected vendors whatever the method ultimately the broker should have the ability to make that choice for every listing in his or her office using a single interface.

I believe the benefits to such a system are primarily flexibility; at anytime down the road the broker should have the option to terminate his syndication partnership with a third party should they violate a term of their agreement or if he or she feels the partnership lacks value. By integrating this kind of control into a single management system the broker is able to define his or her competitive space without restricting other brokers’ business choices. From this vantage point brokers can leverage that fine grain control over their listing data in order to drive the conversation with the third party providers to terms which are beneficial to them. Ultimately I believe that most brokers would want to share their information if they could retain control over it in such a fashion.

So where is the value proposition?

A running theme in Brian’s article and of conversations that I have with Brokers regarding data sharing is what is the value to the broker in sharing their data. As it is each of these companies offer one thing only it seems, page views. What does a page view mean to a broker not a whole heck of a lot. They pay for the server, they pay for the content, they pay for the content and by giving their listings away for free they are paying for the traffic.

Brokers today are facing a whole set of issues and opportunities that different then three years ago. Years back the focus was on exposure and getting page views which in turn often led to leads. Now the landscape is different costs are on the rise, inventory is increasing and time on market (time between paychecks) is also on the rise. Unfortunately the data sharing models that have worked for the past 3, 5, 10 years have failed to keep pace with times.

How then can we shift the website from a cost center to a profit center for brokers. Data standardization is one way, by keeping the costs of maintenance and implementation Brokers can be more adaptable to change and keep their site current without incurring as great of costs. Next as data providers we must work to secure listing data for brokers and once the data is secured define it not as just information but work product (content) which is owned by that broker. At that point we could employ the discrete control mechanisms that would perhaps allow brokers to develop a monetization strategy for their syndicated content.

Perhaps we should be looking to google for inspiration in this rather than focusing on their search which is awesome maybe there is an opportunity to define an adsense-esque system for listing syndication. To have this happen I think there are three steps which must be made.

First is data standardization, RETS has made great strides in the but really we should as an industry be talking a common language front to back and vice versa. For instance Baths Partial irregardless of system should be recorded and stored the same, in the Bay Area it is recorded three different ways on three different systems.

Second step is define an industry terms of service for Third party aggregators. The key to such an agreement is that it ultimately must uphold the rights of the brokers as the owners of the listing data.

Finally we need to get the MLS providers to implement a discrete set of controls as described above which will allow the brokers to retain control over their listings after they enter into partnership agreements.

In my own organization Listing Data is the topic of regular discussion both in committees and workgroups. Michael Seguin my co-author and counterpart at Contra Costa Association of REALTORS and I have been working for the past year with our MLS Vendor and a number of 3rd parties to see such a system implemented. Michael Wurzer from FlexMLS let me know in the comments of a previous post that this is exactly the direction their platform is headed (so hoorah for Flex!).

Ultimately I believe there is a time limit on these changes and as an industry we should be actively discussing these issues and asking brokers (large and small) for input. The reality is that consumers have access to more and more listing data and off market data daily. If this trend continues the value of MLS data is going to become diminished and if we don’t start planning and positioning ourselves to account for this eventuality we may as an industry find ourselves left out of the conversation.

So the question to you the reader then is what could your MLS Provider be doing to better secure your data, or are there strategies that they are employing to secure it on your behalf. If you are an MLS Provider what steps are you taking to secure Broker data and what improvements do you expect to make over the next couple of years. Finally if you are an Association employee (IT Director, Association Executive, or the guy who mans the counter at lunch) what steps is your organization taking?

Mark Flavin 

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