Tales of an Industry Lost at Sea

A strategic perspective on the consumer’s search for real estate information on the web

A strategic whitepaper by Brian Larson, Kevin McQueen & Elizabeth Sobotka

Released May 9, 2008

REALTOR® associations, multiple listing services (MLSs), and the brokers they serve still have not united behind a strategy regarding consumer real estate listing search on the web – some thirteen years after aggregated real estate listings began appearing on the world-wide-web.

The authors have watched MLS executives and agents and brokers from smaller real estate firms go head-to-head with executives of larger brokerages over public MLS web sites at industry meetings. We have wondered as some MLSs and brokers send listings to national aggregator sites just because others are. We have been perplexed as the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) Future of MLS Presidential Advisory Group has discussed and then apparently discarded the idea of a consumer-facing role for NAR’s project, The Real Estate Channel.

Two significant problems underpin these issues:

1. These discussions lack an articulated strategy – a statement of where the efforts are to lead – that MLSs, associations, and brokers endorse.

2. Few facts are available to objectively illuminate the discussions, and folks are stretching them in public discussions to support only the points of view they have already adopted.

It makes sense to step back a moment and consider why MLSs and associations are here, what they should seek to achieve, and the best ways to produce desired results by working together with brokers. In this introduction, we make some observations about what we have seen, and the tales that follow the introduction provide arguments and data in support of our observations.

Right now, it looks as if the industry has set off on a sea voyage without maps, compass, or GPS, and the officers are bickering with each other and with the crew over the course and the destination. Everyone knows the waters are dangerous, but there is no agreement whether the officers should fear pirates, sharks, storms, reefs, or all of them.

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