NAR announced their purchase of technology to construct the Realtors® Property Resource, a nationwide database of over 140,000,000 homes. Althoughthe press release denies the intent to make this anything more than a member benefit, it seems likely that a national MLS could follow.
Currently, local and regional MLS systems have a data sharing protocol to NAR’s national service – one that provides minimal info (for example, one of our fourplex apartment listings shows up as an 8 bedroom house), and some search abilities for buyers.
More and more buyers and agents are demanding the ability to get to information without having to worry about how to find the local MLS provider’s website first.
As you would expect with any large organization (NAR has about 1,000,000 members), they have had a hard time balancing the needs of the consumer, the agent, and the Realtor boards.
At the end of the day, a good friend, mentor and former Executive Officer of the first Commercial Association of Realtors (NM) in this country, once told me – “if you focus on your customers, customers, then your business will prosper”. (Thank you Nelson Janes!)
How about it NAR? Let’s focus soley on the real estate buyer and seller, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.
If we don’t you can count on someone like Google to.