Northern California Realtors® and real estate associations are once again leading the way with technology.  Back in January I wrote that several Bay Area real estate associations were in discussions to create a large multi-association multiple listing service.  While that effort is still on the table a significant development has occurred in the Northern California real estate industry. 

Three well-known multiple listing services (MLSs) have agreed to share real-time property listing information for the benefit of the more than 41,000 real estate professionals they serve.  The three MLSs are the MetroList Services, Inc. which serves the Northern California Central Valley (Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, Yolo, San Joaquin, Stanislaus & Merced counties) the San Francisco Association of Realtors, or SFAR, serving San Francisco and the northern peninsula and BAREIS (Bay Area Real Estate Information Services) which services the North Bay (Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Solono and Mendocino counties).

Quattro is the name of the new service that links together the three major MLSs.  Quattro will merge listing information from the three MLSs into a common data set and enhance the ability of real estate brokerages to download listing information from the three MLSs into their proprietary software programs.  By agreement , agents will be allowed full, real-time reciprocal access to the three MLSs as well as access to Quattro, the merged data set, with only a single log-on required.

Quattro will provide real estate professionals with access to property listings in 14 California counties over an area of 18,000 square miles serving a population of 5.6 million people.   This will give Realtors® a capacity for both local and regional information adding more value to their clients in Northern California.

According to Rapattoni, the data service provider for all three MLSs, the new service will be available on-line to all BAREIS, MetroList and SFAR subscribers by early 2007.