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The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) approved real estate property standard names for MLS's to use as a roadmap how they should structure their data. This new standard simplies real estate data sharing on multiple listing services (MLS's). The standard names were introduced by the MLS Cooperative Venture (COVE) in March during RESO’s General Assembly conference.
RESO oversees RETS, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR's) Transaction Standard, which defined an approach for exchanging listings with multiple listing services.
The upcoming release of version 1.8 of RETS will include the approved standard names, which will benefit Realtors® and the clients they serve, MLS operators, and the vendors who supply MLS technology. Standard names simplify the installation and operation of data feeds, a crucial part of conducting business for both brokers and agents. MLS technology vendors will also now be able to use a common vocabulary with the addition of standard names.
Definitions
NAR: National Association of Realtors. The collective group of Realtors® across the nation.
MLS: Multiple Listing Service. The private local web site real estate agents use. Around here in South Florida, it's Regional MLS (Greater Palm Beach County), Martin MLS (Martin County), Palm Beach MLS (Palm Beach only, darling), Fort Lauderdale MLS and Sunshine MLS (Naples).
COVE: Cooperative Venture. An unofficial group of local MLS's joined together. What happens when a company needs to connect to more than one MLS? Problems because each MLS connects in a different way. This group of MLS's sit at the "same table" and have friendly conversation.
RESO: Real Estate Standard Organization. The official organization that that determines what is what. They oversee RETS. They try to get everyone on the same page across the nation.
RETS: Real Estate Transaction Standard. The actual standard by which third parties connect to the MLS. For example, items like passwords needing six digits long and all the other stuff we hate as users but is so important.
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First American CoreLogic has filed a federal lawsuit against eight rivals, including the real estate Web site Zillow.com and mortgage service provider Lender Processing Services. Santa Ana, California-based CoreLogic says it has a 1994 patent on the automated valuation model (AVM) the companies are using to assess property values for clients.
The other firms named as defendants include: Fiserv, IntelliReal, Interthinx, Precision Appraisal Services, Real Data, and RealEC Technologies.
CoreLogic says all of the eight companies continue, "to willfully, wantonly and deliberately engage in acts of infringement." None of the defendants have released statements in response to the suit. According to the complaint, First American CoreLogic is demanding a trial by jury. The company is seeking an injunction against the eight competitors and asking for triple damages to cover lost profits, as well as compensation for attorneys' fees.
AVM is basically giving people an automatic value of their home. Zillow.com, back by more than $70 million, is the largest player in this arena. Among the real estate community, Zillow.com is notorious for giving completely inaccurate values making the job of real estate agents a tad more difficult.
First American, a large holding company that provides the technology for the Regional MLS, Martin MLS and others across the nation, is claiming that they hold a patent on this technology.
Source: DSNews.com, Carrie Bay, (05/05/2010)
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Listing syndication is all thre rage right now. Trying to get as much exposure as possible, brokers or real estate companies, freely send their properties for sale to third party web sites. The well known sites are sites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com and Frontdoor.com (Missing any? Let me know by commenting below).
The Scene
The Trade-Off
In return for real estate companies freely sending their information, these third party sites charge brokers for upgrade like showing the broker's logo on their listings and featuring their properties. They charge agents in a similar fashion for banner ads and sidebar ads. In addition, they charge outside companies like Home Depot and Bank of America who may want to advertise on their web site.
I call this type of web site model a realtor.com model as they were the web site first to invent it for real estate. Other web sites quickly followed suit. The difference though is that Realtor.com automatically TAKES all the listing information whereas other web sites rely on the real estate companies to GIVE the infromatiion.
You can find more about this in our previous article Real Estate Web Site RoundUp here.
For Example
So, for example, Great Fake FL Real Estate Co. has 100 properties listed for sale. Great Fake FL Real Estate Co. collects all the information about these 100 properties and they send them to a web site like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com and Frontdoor.com (Missing any? Let me know by commenting below).
Among the information being sent, like number of bathrooms and number of bedrooms and listing price, the information usually also contains a link back to the source of original information.
So if the information is coming from the real estate company, a link like VIEW MORE DETAILS will link back to the real estate company's web site.
If the information is coming from a third party advertising source, say like HOMES AND LAND, the link will direct vistors back to the HOMES AND LAND web site. And if the agent takes the engery and effort to manually retype all the information into the SYNDICATION SITE, the link will direct visotrs back to the web site of their choosing, usually the agent's personal web site. Make sense?
[CAUTION: once a third party site gains enough visiting power, the site will likely cease to send vistors back to the original listing source. This is the case of http://realestate.yahoo.com recently. But they have since changed. ]
The Great Listing Race Question
Now if these third party sites rely on informatation given to them, what happens when both the broker sends information about a property for sale, the agent sends information about a property for sale and a third party advertising outlet sends infromation about a property for sale? Who wins? Who's site will get redirected to? Who will be listed as the "Source of information"? If they have conflicting information, which of the three will show?
That's great question. I've had this happen recently. I've discovered that in these cases, each web site is going to react differently. While the web in general can change as fast as I write this, I'd thought I'd share the options that I've witnessed recently.
The Broker Wins
The first option, and the most common, that occurs is that the broker wins despite other information avenues. This probably happens for good reason in the sense that by legal standing, the listings or properties for sale are owned by the broker or the real estate company. So if an agent has 10 properties for sale and decides to leave the company, the properties usually stay with the real estate company and don't follow the agent. So with this thinking, information coming from the broker wins as they are the rightful owner. In addition, information coming from the broker is usually fed automatically rather than manually inputted. So it may be that automatic feeds take precedence over manual information.
EXAMPLE: Zillow.com & Trulia.com
The Agent Wins
This is an option that is witnessed on a web site like Trulia.com. The process goes something like this. The information is sent by the broker and property shows. The agent can manually create an account and CLAIM the listing as their own. Once they do this they have the option of 'enhancing' the property usually by adding more photos, etc. But the agent cannot change infomation fed to the web site as this is against law (you can't advertise a property for $1 million on one site and $1.2 million on another). Part of 'enhancing' the property usually includes changing the web site that the listing backlinks to. In most cases, the agent's web site.
EXAMPLE: Zillow.com & Trulia.com, only if agent claims the listing.
The Most Information Wins
I first saw this on Yahoo's real estate web site. The information source with the most information is the winner and gets listed as the source. The driving (and sneaky) item here is that is encourages sources to provide as much information as possible to out-inform their counter parts. So if an advertising outlet like a virtual tour company sends more info than the broker itself, the Virtual tour company is listed as the source of info.
EXAMPLE: Yahoo.com
The Most Recent Information Wins
While this is common, it can also lead to an information ping pong match. The process is something like this. A real estate company sends information on Monday morning. That information shows on the third party site. If the agent sends it in the afternoon through the course of their work day, it changes to the agents info. As normal practice the real estate company sends the info every morning, so the information is sent again on Tuesday morning and consequently changed back to the real estate company infomation.
All Sources Win
I've witnessed this at Google.com. If Google, or more accurately Google Maps, recieves information from various sources, the web site will display the listing once in the results but it will display full information from each source when viewing the details and give each credit for the information.
I've also wintessed this at Frontdoor.com. If Frontdoor recieves information from various sources, the web site will display the listing twice, once from each source. In this case, it leads to confusion among the web site visitors. Why would one property be listed twice in the first place? Makes sense to me but then again I do this a living. But it doesn't make sense to Joe Visitor.
EXAMPLE: Google.com & Frontdoor.com
Conclusion
Hopefully I've given you some insightful information to think about. The listing race heated up starting in 2009 and continues to rage in 2010 and will continue to do so in the future.
Until then, agents can become furious over the fact that their information or their hired virtual tour information is beat out by the broker information.
Brokers play information parade as they freely toss-out property information like pieces of candy from high above their parade floats down to grovelling web sites that secretly do back-ally techniques like black market merchants.
Home buyers are confused as to why real estate information is spread throughout the web in such a hodge podge manner. Why some properties show once and other show twice.
Home sellers are confused as to why sometimes their property for sale is linked back to their broker site and sometime they link back a completely different site.
This beautiful mess is the current real estate web landscape. We'll let you know if we find something different.
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Florida is ranked second in the 2009 top ten list of states where people are moving to, according to report published by U-Haul International Inc. It's easy to see why. With great weather, a strong economy and an incredible cost of living, Florida continues to grow.
The report, titled "2009 Top 10 U.S. Growth States," indicates that for states with more than 20,000 families moving, Florida had the second highest percentage of growth, with 3.79 percent more families moving into the state than out.
The 2009 Top 10 U.S. Growth States Report was compiled from more than 1 million U-Haul one-way truck transactions occurring during a recent 12 month period.
1. Kentucky
2. Florida
3. Georgia
4. Oklahoma
5. Illinois
6. Alabama
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Louisiana
9. South Carolina
10. Arizona
Source: U-Haul
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A newly formed association comprised of fifteen MLS's across the country is trying to pass a Top Level Domain (TLD) of ".mls".
A TLD is the group of letters after the DOT in a domain name or web site name. So in www.regionalidx.com the TLD is ".com" whereas the TLD of www.daknetworks.net the TLD is ".net".
The association claims that having a ".mls" will assist in real estate activities by having a dedicated location for MLS's and their authorized partners.
“The Association looks forward to inviting all MLSs to join,” said Brian Larson, President of Larson/Sobotka Business Advisors, a consulting firm engaged by the founding MLSs to create the business plan for the Association and to guide it through its early operations. “For the next few weeks,” he said, “the current leaders will be working on policies relating to membership, domain registration, and dispute resolution that the Association needs to sort out before opening the doors wide.”
A TLD of ".xxx" was tried a few years ago from locally based ICM Registy of Jupiter, Florida headed up by British dot com entrepreneur Stuart Lawley. The idea was to force all x-rated material to the ".xxx" suffix but it was squashed by opponents for various reasons.
Lawley put his Jupiter house up for auction in 2008 and sold for $4.65 million through Illustrated Properties due to a divorce. He originally purchased in 2001 for $5.9 million.
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INTRODUCTION
1000Watt recently released a report where they select the Top Ten Real Estate Brokerage Web sites in America. Naturally I read the read the report as I watch closely what happens across the country when it comes to Real Estate and Web sites.
Read more: An Open Reply to 1000Watt Top Ten Real Estate Brokerage Web sites in America
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National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finally settled, ending a four-year argument about NAR's policy regarding the display of listings from the MLS on brokers' web sites.
Regional MLS rules require action by no later than February 15, 2009. The actions by Regional MLS are required by the settlement of U.S. v. NAR, the case brought by the DOJ challenging NAR’s previous VOW policy including the IDX policy.
Here's a reprint of the Judgment against NAR.
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Recently, according to Regional MLS, rmlsfl.com states:
Beginning Monday, December 15th, 2008, the following new rules are in effect for photos:
1. Photos must be added to a listing within five (5) days of entry into MLXchange.
2. At least one photo must be of the front exterior of the property.
3. Rental listings are now required to have a photo and follow all the photo rules.
This is great because it adds strength to the Regional MLS of greater West Palm Beach. Currently, there are many available properties for sale in the Regional MLS without photos.
Listings without photos weaken the Regional MLS and consequently, Regional IDX. When, according to NAR, more than 80% use the internet to buy their home, it's imperative that they find the information they seek.
Remember that any photo added to Regional MLS automatically shows on your web site within 24 hours, if you're a Regional IDX member. That's right, your web site is working even when you're sleeping.
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AmericanExpress.com web site has a major outage today. Outages happen to large companies and small companies alike for various reasons.
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The Palm Beach Post, which covers Palm Beach and the greater West Palm Beach area, released their new version of their real estate section this week. It's kept at: http://floridahome.palmbeachpost.com We'll look at the web site a little and point out the good and the bad.
