Realtor groups agree to joint listings
By James Temple
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Six Northern California Realtor groups have tentatively agreed to merge multiple listing services, a move that would form one of the country's largest databases of for-sale homes.
The organizations claim the consolidated system will enable home sellers and buyers to advertise and shop within a significantly expanded marketplace.
Some Northern California MLSs currently include as few as 5,000 subscribing real estate professionals who list or look for homes with the service. The merged MLS, in contrast, will consist of about 46,000 members across 11 counties, said Gregg Larson, spokesman for the new MLS.
"The agent will be able to provide (customers with) more homes, more quality and sometimes information that wasn't available at all before," said Larson, also CEO of Clareity Consulting and Communications.
The merged MLS will also benefit Realtors, some of whom currently must work with two or more separate systems, each with different rules and procedures, Larson said.
Patrick Lashinsky, a senior vice president with Emeryville-based online broker ZipRealty Inc., said the expanded MLS is, on its face, beneficial for consumers. But he stressed that the Realtor groups must not restrict outside access to the information, as some MLSs have done.
Indeed, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the National Association of Realtors last year over its policy of limiting Internet sites' access to MLS information. The government said the restriction is anti-competitive and undercuts online and discount brokers' ability to gain a foothold in the market.
The national Realtors group argues that multiple listing services are the property of its members. The case is ongoing.
"If MLSs are designed to make everyone compete on the same playing field, that's great," Lashinsky said. "If it's used as a tool to reinforce or protect the biggest players and not let new players succeed and innovation to occur, that's wrong."
A September report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office was also critical of MLSs, noting their use may artificially prop up broker commission rates.
The fact that the MLS advertises the commission promised to the broker who brings in a buyer, the GAO said, "creates a disincentive for home sellers or their brokers to offer less than the prevailing rate, since buyers' brokers may show high-commission properties first."
Jim Hamilton, president of the California Association of Realtors, said at the time that the GAO's conclusions were inaccurate and stressed that commission rates regularly fluctuate.
The merging MLSs include REInfolink, Contra Costa MLS, Bay East MLS, East Bay Regional Data, Central Valley MLS and the San Francisco Association of Realtors MLS, which lists homes for sale in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Monterey, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, San Benito, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Western Merced counties.
The Realtor organizations are scheduled to adopt a standardized set of MLS rules on March 1. The groups will then begin creating, testing and migrating their information onto a central database, a process expected to be complete by the end of next year. The new MLS will be owned collectively by the groups, and governed by elected brokers.
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Pleasant Hill, Martinez, Clayton, Alamo, Danville
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