The future of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

One day very soon an enterprising entrepreneur much like the ones who started Trulia, Redfin, or Zillow will make the MLS and NAR irrelevant. It seems that NAR is aware of this and much like the RIAA attacking its own customers NAR is going after its own members not realizing that this will makes their own demise that much quicker.

When I was an agent (before Hurricane Katrina) I used to laugh at the NAR ads telling people to make sure the agent they hired was a Realtor. In my market you HAD TO JOIN NAR TO ACCESS THE MLS. This destroys any value that NAR provides because everyone is a member or they can't work. Also, all brokers that are members MUST require that their new agents join within 30 days of  signing with that broker or face stiff daily fines until they join or are terminated.   Aside from the ethics rules I personally didn’t see any value provided by joining. I viewed it a necessary evil and begrudgingly paid my dues and chalked it up as a cost of doing business.

Recently, I read on a blog that NAR was considering a proposed rule that all members could only have a blog if it was on REALTOR.com. This is ludicrous and could possibly be an infringement of their 1st amendment rights (let me clear, I am not a lawyer but I did spend the night at a Holiday Inn Express once). If  NAR wanted them to use the blogs on REALTOR.com they would make them useful and create high search results for agents, their paying customers, not NAR.

As the Realtor population ages, more Gen-X and Gen-Y buyers enter the market and the real estate profession, and 90%+ of home searches begin online the value of sites like Trulia, Redfin, Google Base for Real Estate, and Zillow will become more apparent and I see a future where agents will no longer need NAR or the MLS to make money and be successful.