It used to be a violation of MLS rules to allow a customer to use the MLS book. Now MLS allows it to be published. The Internet gives us access to each others pages, and MLS is not as necessary as it used to be for knowing what is for sale in another office.

Also, when MLS allows non-member sites to download our listings to populate their site, is it working in our best interest? We get charged for the leads our work is generating for those sites. Sounds backwards to me.

These practices are only a few years old. Can we recover? In my office, we are dealing with customers that think they know the market as well as we do. They have surfed pages for 2 months in some cases, and they know many properties for sale. They do miss a lot, because they are "part timers", but it is diminishing their view of the profession.

Will the downloading of the MLS to generic sites dilute our business to just being the information gatherers?

I'm sure that opening up the MLS to the public certainly got the folks at N.A.R. who sold the scheme a boatload of money. It was probably Enron level mega-bonus time. As a result, I feel it has taken hundreds of millions of dollars OUT of Realtors pockets and encouraged a huge downward slide in this industry. As you said, everybody you meet with a computer is now an "expert" and knows "everything". Shame on the NAR for this sellout.

This makes our job even a little tougher, which isn't always a bad thing. The fallout rate in our industry is huge, and I'm fine with that. There are WAY too many schmucks in this industry. See also: mortgage industry 1998-2003. Having the sales skills to overcome the "expert" shopper is not always easy, but those that can do so are rewarded.

Just to cover this base: Yes, Rick Mense, we are rewarded financially at gross levels with gazillions of dollars of filthy lucre.

I have run into clients that feel they have as much info as I do.

When this becomes an "issue", I make sure and point out that:

1) Not ALL listings in the MLS end up on the internet. When a realtor (at least here in California) enters a listing, they have to check the online spots it will be listed. They do not always do this. It used to be (2 years ago when I checked into it) as much as 30% of listings were not being entered to allow access by these sites. I believe that number is subtantially lower these days - but I am not sure what the actual number is.

2) Not all information in the listing is provided online or in other publications.

I too agree that NAR is missing the boat when it comes to this issue. Public access to this information should have to come from NAR members. I have less of a problem with realtor sites posting any listing from anyone.

R

At the Northern CAR show in Sacramento this past week the Southern MLS and Northern MLS are talking about merging. I think this will be good for some agents and bad for others. I think also it will open up MLS statewide to the consumer which may tap into some great Real Estate that they knew never existed.

I hope we are able to consolidate the MLSs here. We are on the edge of 2 completely different ones.

But, merging MLSs doesn't stop the free distribution of the MLS data.

There even is a movement to open the MLS to the public.
http://www.barryfirm.com/mls.html