May. 14, 2012 - Social Media - To Define It or Not in the Context of IDX?

During the Council of MLS call where I presented regarding improvements to the IDX / Social Media policy (http://councilofmls.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IDX-SM-Presentaion-Cohen.pdf), the question was asked, "What about [a listing advertising site] or a newspaper site?". I had previously tried to avoid defining social media, but I understood the caller's concern of IDX data being used in unanticipated ways if the policy does not tightly constrain it, not just in terms of scope as I had in the presentation, to "Individual Linking" and "Embedded Search & Display" reflecting both my own thoughts and those of Brian Larson, but in terms of further constraining the display location.

In my earlier blog post and presentation I was trying to constrain the scope of data use enough that we wouldn't have to define what a social media website was or try to limit those specific uses to those kind of sites, but I'm open to doing so, if others think it's worthwhile. Victor Lund suggested in his recent blog post the following definition: "A social media website is a website that reasonable consumer viewing the display would conclude that it is a social media website." [http://waves.wavgroup.com/2012/05/14/a-case-of-concern-embedded-search-and-display/] I'm not sure I'm on board with that loose a definition - I don't think it's prudent to have local MLSs trying to guess what reasonable consumers might think a social media site is to assess policy compliance. We would be setting our industry up for an inconsistent patchwork of decisions and also be potentially setting ourselves up for some individual MLSs taking actions that would be considered illegal boycotts. It would be better to define the allowed circumstances for limited IDX uses on sites that are not apparently (but actually) under Participant control, and do so a single time.

Assuming that some definition within policy - or at least guidance provided alongside it - is needed, here's my first attempt at a definition: Individual Linking and Embedded Search & Display are allowed on social media displays under a Participant's actual control which are primarily focused on the Participant building both personal and professional social networks and interacting with those networks. These social media displays are distinct from those websites and displays, either individually or in combination with associated websites and displays, that are used primarily to transmit or advertise either listings or real estate related services.

Perhaps by singling out real-estate-focused websites there might be a question of an alleged boycott, where some MLSs might be perceived as using this rule to disadvantage competitors. I'm certainly open to ideas how to avoid that issue. But this is exactly why the definition needs to be refined once, with appropriate legal counsel, and not inefficiently and inconsistently by each MLS. Let's do this once and get it right.



 

May. 11, 2012 - MLS News This Week - May 7-11

There was lots of MLS news this week!

• RPR had an important new release
• RESO releases RETS Data Dictionary 1.0, including 503 fields (pdf)
• Homes.com partners with more MLSs
• MLSs adopt Clareity's SAFE Syndication
• MIAMI Association of REALTORS® Selects Discover/iMapp as a parallel system
• CRMLS (largest MLS) extends with Matrix deal and joins CoreLogic partner infonet
• Xceligent Acquires Commercial Data Platform from NAR's Second Century Ventures
   

Apr. 23, 2012 - Thoughts on the New IDX Policy Draft - April 2012

Last year, the IDX Policy draft reviewed at NAR meetings, designed to address social media, mobile "apps", and provide other modernizations was not found acceptable by attendees, and the task was put off to a new subcommittee, the "2012 MLS Technology and Emerging Issues Subcommittee", to improve upon it.

Before I get to the recommendation that subcommittee made, here's some background: Because the subject at hand related to brokers' listings, Clareity performed a broker survey (http://www.callclareity.com/Broker-Survey-IDX-Social-Media-Rule-Changes-January-2012.pdf) in cooperation with REAL Trends in December 2011 to learn more about brokers’ opinions and concerns regarding the proposed IDX and Social Media changes to NAR’s MLS Policy.  The survey was published online and was widely distributed and discussed, including by the subcommittee. The survey results? 74% were in opposition to IDX listings being used on social media websites as a broad category. So, Clareity's recommendation was NOT to include social media in policy in a broad manner, but to address specific uses, such as how IDX listings could be used to 'tease' and link to traditional IDX sites from other websites - including social media.

However, if the brokers were to be ignored and social media was included in policy, 88% of respondents agreed that, if listings are sent to third party websites, it must be a rule that the broker responsible for sending the listing to that site must be clearly identified so they can take responsibility for display policy non-compliance. Also, over two-thirds of brokers indicated that if listings were sent to third party websites, it should be required to tell the MLS where the listings have been posted, so the MLS can manage compliance. 85% of respondents favored providing an opt-out for display on non-participant sites (or sites where the owner/operator is unclear).

79% of brokers did feel IDX policy needs to be updated – though most of that interest correlated with an interest to use IDX data on mobile "apps", not for social media use. So, with all this in mind, let's look at the proposed changes:

For reference, the recommendation (04.11.12 v3) is available here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46364242/Proposed-amendments-to-Model-IDX-rules.pdf

The recommended changes are six pages long, and the first four pages (section 18 through 18.3.13) are right on target, changing references to IDX websites to "electronic display" and other generalizations needed to accommodate "apps" - just what the brokers ordered. Other changes were made to accommodate small and partial displays where there wasn't room for full disclaimers and such. That's all good!

Then, in sections 18.3.14 there is a reference to: "Participants are required to employ appropriate security protection such as firewalls on their websites and displays, and on displays controlled by participants on others’ websites, provided that any security measures required may not be greater than those employed by the MLS." One of my favorite parts of IDX rules (which I just blogged about a few days ago! - http://www.realtown.com/mattcohen/blog/vow-idx-security-compliance/) had been expanded to "displays controlled by participants on others’ websites". How can a participant control the security practices of someone other than a Participant's website, and what right does the MLS have to evaluate this and obtain compliance? Section 18.3.15 had been similarly amended: "Participants must maintain an audit trail of consumer activity on the IDX site their website and on other websites where display is controlled by participants."  The MLS doesn't have a data license agreement with "other websites" to provide for enforcement of display, data redistribution, etc., with third parties, and that's a problem.

So, now Participants would be allowed put others' listings on "other websites" (I assume they meant other "electronic displays") where they control the display?  What about the restrictions mentioned in the survey? Opt-out for those sites? Not in the policy recommendation. MLS notification for compliance? Not required. Identification of the broker providing the data to the site? Not even that.

What about the term "control"? It's defined in section 18.2.7: "For purposes of the IDX policy and these rules, 'control' means the ability to add, delete, modify and update information as required by the IDX policy and MLS rules." All of that relates to the listings, not to all of the other areas of the site needed to manage IDX compliance. And if the broker or agent controls the listings on any advertising site - can those can now get an IDX feed? And couldn't the franchise sites fall under this category of "other websites"? If the intent is for control to be inclusive of any aspect of the website needed to achieve compliance, that should be made more clear.

So, I suggested just dropping "other websites" from the two sections I referenced earlier. But, Cliff Niersbach from NAR brought up the example of needing "other websites" to accommodate an agent with listings on their brokers' site - or brokers displaying listings on a franchise site - but distinct from the franchisor display provision. I believe those examples and exceptions can be specifically called out rather than using the general language of "other websites", and if anyone has objections to those specific cases - as I suspect there might be in the franchise example, as that would be inconsistent with what had just been decided during the last policy meeting - those can be discussed during the policy approval meetings.

Looking at the last page of the proposal, "Section 18.5 - Display of IDX Information using Social Media", the ambiguity of what "social media" might encompass makes me very nervous. If I add a social media feature to a newspaper site, does it now fall under this policy? Perhaps if there was a very limited definition of where social media sites began and ended, it would be a start to alleviating that concern - and the concerns of the brokers I surveyed. Or, we could take another approach, which I'll get to later in this post.

Note that this "social media" section is optional per MLS, which I expect would result in a patchwork of adoption across ajoining MLSs, which could drive brokers that function in multiple MLS markets crazy.

Section 18.5.1 and 18.5.2 allows MLSs to enact either opt-in or opt-out, and limits listing use to consenting Participants. Again, I think the policy should choose one or the other - brokers and agents who have to opt-in to some MLSs and opt-out of others might be a touch confused with inconsistency. I'm a fan of the opt-in option, because that way the default is for there to be no change unless specific conscious action is made by the broker or agent to make the change for themselves.  Of course, if we believe in IDX over social media "whole hog" then we would want adoption and "opt out", which was proven more successful to encourage adoption of IDX proper back in the day.

Section 18.5.3 requires Participants to tell the MLS they want to use IDX listings in social media. No harm there, though it doesn't really require the Participant to tell the MLS all of the places where the listings are going (as per the broker survey), and I see compliance problems ahead, especially as many MLSs are moving toward more proactive IDX compliance and away from reactive, inconsistent and complaint-based, "the MLS is picking on me" policing.

Section 18.5.4 requires the Participants to allow the MLS access to the social media platform(s) to assess rule compliance. That's good - but how will the MLS know what to ask for access to? See my previous comment on section 18.5.3.

Section 18.5.5 requires social media to be subject to compliance with IDX policies and rules. That's good - however the commercial interests of advertising sites which may add social media components to allow them to fall under this rule (at least as social media is undefined now) were not taken into account when writing IDX rules - there are probably a lot of restrictions (i.e. No advertising other agents using someone else's listing) that are being discussed for those sites that we would have to write into IDX rules for this to work - maybe something like Clareity's "Syndication Bill of Rights". Hopefully, social media can be well enough defined that we don't need to go down this road - or, as I'll get into later, we may not want to describe this as "social media" at all, but instead, specifically allow IDX listing use for limited and specific online agent-consumer/client interactions.

Section 18.5.6 was interesting - "IDX information cannot be displayed on social media platforms determined by the MLS, in consultation with legal counsel, as adverse to the interests of sellers or MLS participants." I'm not sure what to think about this one yet, as there may be anti-trust "boycott" concerns - but it's probably good for this to be included in policy and certainly legal counsel with anti-trust and real estate acumen would be appropriate for making those decisions.

Don't get me wrong - regardless of the broker survey, I personally think we have to somehow accommodate social media in at least some way in the policy - but let's be very careful when we open up that door too broadly because there's no easily going back. Let's think about the situations where it makes sense for agents and brokers to use social media and accommodate them.

For example, which of these tweets is a reasonable use, when "teasing" and linking to traditional IDX/VOW sites from social media? Where does one draw the line?

• Tweet: Go to my website to see new listings in the neighborhood [link]
• Tweet: There's a new listing (not mine) in the neighborhood [link]
• Tweet: Great new condo on the market - 1 Main St. Scottsdale (not my listing) - [link]
• Tweet: Great Condo - 1 Main St. Scottsdale – 2 beds 2 baths $432k (not my listing) - [link]
• Tweet: Foothills home SOLD IN  ONLY 5 DAYS! 4BR 4BA $750k (not my listing) – [link]

Obviously it would be okay to email a client about an IDX property they might have an interest in, so "direct messages" on any social media platform would be similarly allowed. But what about posting such properties to the clients' "wall" to encourage social buying? Does one go too far when one posts 50, 100, or 300 properties to their wall? Exploring the "interaction with client via social media" use case is a definite to-do for policy creators. That's a lot easier and meaningful to address than opening up agents posting the whole database on a 'social media site' (whatever that is...) for everyone.

An industry colleague who's on the subcommittee asked, "Alright, so I am a consumer, I go to your web site, I see another brokers listing on your site that I find interesting, and I tweet about it, or I scrape it and upload it on my Facebook site. Since you can’t control my actions or have any influence over me regarding my tweets or my Facebook activity, should you be liable or responsible for my activity?" Another colleague responded, "This issue was my number one concern – where does the responsibility of the broker end?  With this definition it is easier to interpret that the circumstance  of a consumer taking and posting on their own site/blog/tweet, etc.) that the broker had no control over  – and does reduce his/her liability?" More good questions to think about, right?

At any rate, these examples show the kind of work that the subcommittee could be doing as it evaluates how to address "social media" or, as my thinking currently is tending, avoiding the use of that general term that everyone has had so much trouble defining and the vagueness of which made the brokers so uncomfortable and focusing on the limited and specific allowed agent/consumer-client online activities.

So, to sum up, for the most part the new IDX Policy Draft was going in a good direction, but I offer these significant recommendations for improvement:

18.2.7 - Amend the definition of "control" to be inclusive of any aspect of the website needed to achieve IDX compliance.

18.3.14 / 18.3.15 - Change "other website" type language to be limited to the specific types of websites this section is intended to address. As per the broker survey, address opt-out for those sites, MLS notification for compliance, and identification of the broker providing the data to the site.

18.5 - Either define "social media" to eliminate potential unexpected uses or, likely far more feasible, enumerate the specific non-Participant site uses allowed and not allowed, and describe the "if not mentioned" scenario. This is a significant project to be performed rigorously. Also, at least reconsider the pros and cons of making these changes mandatory rather than optional.

18.5.1 / 18.5.2 - Choose opt-in or opt-out, preferably opt-in.

18.5.3 - Require Participants to report to the MLS where they are using the listings online outside of their Participant IDX website or display.

18.5.5 - No change is needed IF the social media use definition is tightly constrained - otherwise, see the details described above.

When it comes to changing IDX policy, we've had a lot of embarrassing and in some cases expensive false starts over the last decade, and I want to be sure we get this right. I think there are some problems with this set of recommendations, proceeding primarily from a well-intentioned goal of making them flexible and accommodating online agent-consumer collaboration around properties.  But I don't want to see a lot of last minute changes at the NAR meetings - I think mistakes could be made acting in haste, especially in a group that size, and especially at seven in the morning when the meeting is currently scheduled. So, hopefully the workgroup can put another day in pronto and create a new version well before the meeting for review. If there isn't sufficient time to do this by May, I'm sure a rigorous and iterative process could be put in place toward policy approval during the November meetings.

One of my industry colleagues on the subcommittee, who I consider to be a wise person, responded to my "get it right the first time" comment with this: "I don't truly believe that we can get it right once and that will do forever – that was our initial mistake with IDX – letting it sit so long without updating it.  The proposed changes are a start and a good foundation for keeping the policy current as we go forward – this is a big bite – if we can get this up and running, work out the kinks, it will be easier for everyone to adopt further changes as we move forward into the great unknown!" That's a reasonable, legitimate argument against paralysis in the face of imperfection - but I think if there is just a bit of additional rigorous and iterative thought about this policy, we could have a much more solid foundation for that future still set this year - and the industry won't establish practice via policy that must be rescinded later, causing confusion in the ranks and cost for those needing to re-work their listing display strategy.

 

Mar. 7, 2012 - Tying Concerns in the Real Estate Industry

Clareity was privileged this year to have an amazingly smart yet approachable anti-trust attorney, Claude Szyfer, speak at the 2012 MLS Executive Workshop.  There are potentially anti-trust considerations for real estate industry organizations in day-to-day operations and policy making, especially as they expand the scope of products and services offered, and as they evaluate mergers and other forms of cooperation with competitive associations or multiple listing services.  So, it is important to have an enhanced understanding of anti-trust issues and have at least a basic understanding of what tests might apply. That said, and regardless of anything said in this blog post, no self-evaluation can replace a qualified attorney - and during the Clareity Workshop many participants lined up to ask Claude questions privately during the breaks.

Probably the most important subject covered during the Clareity Workshop session was "tying" - a practice that MLSs and Associations need to understand when expanding their product and service offering. A tying arrangement is "an arrangement by a party to sell one product [the tying product] but only on the condition that the buyer also purchases a different [tied product], or at least agrees that he will not purchase that product from any other supplier." [Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. U.S. , 356 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1958)]. The product the customer wants is the tying product because this is the product that the seller uses to "tie" the customer.  The product the customer does not want is the tied product.  In other words, someone is forcing you to buy a product (or service) you don't want, in order to buy a product you do want or limits your ability to purchase a product from sources other than the seller or its designee.  The tying arrangement usually involves the same seller of the tying product and the tied product, but can also result from two different sellers working together in some fashion.

There are four basic elements for a "tie":

1. There must be two separate products;
2. There must be a tie between them;
3. The seller must have enough power in the market for the tying product so that it can impact trade in the market for the tied product; and
4. A certain amount of sales for the tied product must actually be impacted by the tie.

Understanding the tests and how to apply them is very tricky - Claude spent a good amount of time during the session teaching MLS executives how to try to evaluate these four elements. He showed how using pricing to make it economically infeasible to take just one product creates a tie, how items can be bundled or discounted so they are the "only viable economic option" to create a tie, and what it means to have "market power" to create a tie - a "special ability" to force a purchaser to purchase something they would not do in a truly competitive market. Claude made it clear that not a lot of economic damage to commerce was needed. In our industry's famous Thompson case, the Court found $30-70,000 in dues was substantial enough.

As an example of potential tying, Claude used a hypothetical real estate association offer of a new technology/information service, bundled into dues (though it could have been offered at an artificially low price). In this case, the tying product is the association membership and the tied product is the new service. Claude provided one example where there was no competing product - in which case there was no tying.  However, he also described a second case, where there was a competing service that sub-organizations or members wanted to keep using.  In that latter scenario, there has been an impact in the market for the tied product:  because of the tie, you are forced to buy a product that you don't want and you may need to stop using one service in favor of another because you don't need two redundant systems. If the impact to the providers in the tied product market is in any way significant, then there was tying! As mentioned before, one must be careful in applying this example to your own situation - no self-evaluation can replace the help of a qualified attorney.

As mentioned, Claude covered a lot more ground in his presentation - especially around MLS policy and rule making as well as how anti-trust concerns may or may not be concerns during mergers and other MLS cooperation. We wanted to share at least this small part of his presentation on our blog.

Clareity has been privileged to work for eight years on various projects with Claude, who is a partner in the national law firm, Stroock &Stroock & Lavan, LLP. Whenever our clients are entering an area that might require a deep bench of specialized legal expertise, Claude and his firm are one of the options we consider bringing to the table to supplement our business consulting.  We want to thank Claude for bringing his expertise to the Clareity MLS Executive Workshop last week and providing tremendous value to participants.

Mar. 6, 2012 - Clareity's 2012 MLS Satisfaction Survey is Released

Clareity Consulting has completed its 11th Annual MLS Satisfaction Survey. The latest survey results will be very useful to MLSs, helping supplement reference checking in system selection processes and helping vendors understand areas for improvement.

This year, we also asked a number of questions regarding satisfaction with ancillary products and service vendors in areas such as public records, transaction and document management, forms, and statistics, since these are quickly becoming part of the core MLS organizational offering.

Clareity Consulting hopes that MLS executives, selection committee members, and MLS vendors alike find this year’s report valuable.

The survey report is available for download here:   
http://www.callclareity.com/Clareity-11th-Annual-MLS-Customer-Satisfaction-Survey.pdf

Feb. 24, 2012 - Clareity Consulting & Clareity Security Join Real Estate Standards Organization

February 24, 2012 - Scottsdale, Arizona - Clareity Consulting (www.callclareity.com), a leading consulting firm and industry thought leader and Clareity  Security (www.clareitysecurity.com), the leading provider of data security and compliance tools, single sign on (SSO) and listing syndication management solutions for the real estate industry, are pleased to announce their charter membership in the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO).  This membership was a natural progression and continuation of Clareity's twelve years of leadership and support of real estate industry standards.  Several key members of Clareity's leadership team have been involved with Real Estate Transaction Standards (RETS) since its inception and have maintained an ongoing commitment to furthering industry standards as a whole.

About Clareity Consulting:

Clareity Consulting was founded in 1996 to provide information technology consulting to the real estate industry and its related businesses. Clareity Consulting is an innovative solutions provider committed to delighting its consulting clients. The company is headquartered in beautiful sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. Clareity provides a wide variety of services to MLS, associations, brokers, franchises, and software and service companies that serve the residential real estate market. 

About Clareity Security:

Feb. 22, 2012 - Strategic Syndication: Year One

It has been almost a year since Clareity Consulting began its efforts to bring more attention to listing syndication, starting in earnest at Clareity's 10th Annual MLS Executive Workshop (though we hinted at it a year earlier) and kicking into high gear with the publication of  "Syndication to Real Estate Portals: Problems and Solutions".

In that paper and in speeches around the country, Clareity:

• brought visibility to some online publishers' business models that were rapidly becoming offensive to brokers,
• acknowledged the potential benefits of listing syndication but challenged the common wisdom that the profession benefits from listings "everywhere",
• provided a framework (starting with Clareity's "Syndication Bill of Rights") for brokers to logically consider the actual value provided by these websites,
• and introduced the idea that it was time for brokers to consider more strategic syndication.

It has been gratifying the see the response. The industry echoes loudly with pundits following Clareity's lead on their blogs. Brokers are starting to pull thier listings off sites where they aren't getting sufficient value or where the business model offends. MLSs are starting to advocate on behalf of their subscribers against some of the more atrocious business models. And the Council of MLS and others are now discussing moving forward with the "MLS certified listings" idea that we've been advocating for about five years now and which, as we've described more recently, could be a means of MLSs exerting some control over the advertising sites.

But, this fight is far from over. Most brokers are still on autopilot, syndicating to all publishers, and MLSs are still just getting started with their efforts to educate the brokers on strategic syndication and take other actions. And, as we said before, Clareity expects some of the publishers to get even more aggressive in the near future – they must derive as much revenue as possible from each listing to satiate the increasing demands of the investors that have collectively plowed tens of millions of dollars into these sites. And while there are some relatively "white hat" national listing sites, other than Realtor.com with its NAR operating agreement, there really are no rules controlling online publishers.

Clareity expects syndication to get ugly. These sites have a lot of money to throw around, and can act aggressively and more nimbly than our industry leaders can. It has taken years for even a third of MLSs to create public listing sites as a bulwark, and most of those provide a poor user experience, have mostly terrible SEO and local marketing and, even as MLSs fuss about the URLs where their websites can be found, we're losing today's real battle - the mobile experience, which is quickly overtaking the traditional world of web sites in terms of listing traffic. 

We've got a lot to talk about and a lot to plan - see you (MLS Executives) at the Workshop in March!
 

Jan. 31, 2012 - MLS Fights Back for Its Brokers

Some of you have probably read Clareity’s white paper published last year titled: “Syndication to Real Estate Portals: Problems and Solutions”.

In that paper, we took a look at some of the leading national real estate advertising sites and showed how certain publishers had turned the table on Brokers and are now aggressively monetizing listings and leads through techniques that would never have been attempted a few years ago - and are still not acceptable to most brokers today.

I attended the California Association of REALTORS® winter business meetings last week and saw how one MLS is leading the charge to reclaim the intellectual property value for its members and brokers. Sandicor, the large regional MLS serving greater San Diego County, is doing something bold and innovative. The MLS made a rule change and added one field that could make a profound difference for the future of real estate advertising – they simply created a new advertising remarks field.

This advertising field is distinctly separate from the normal remarks field in the MLS. The advertising remarks do NOT display in the MLS system, but only appear in the data syndication feeds from Sandicor. The advertising field allows an agent to input their contact information including name, phone number, web site link, email address, and a broker web site link along with the property description or no contact information at all if they wish. They are also allowed to include open house information in this field. One thing they cannot do in this field is self-promotion. For example they cannot say they’re the #1 Agent in San Diego.

The purpose and benefits of the new field are clear. Sandicor will require any online publisher/advertising sites that display remarks to not edit out the contact information. Sandicor has concluded that the current practice of obscuring the listing agent or broker by selling the ad space that surrounds a listing  is misleading to consumers. At a minimum, this will at least establish a fair means for consumers to contact the listing agent directly.  If buyers’ agents choose to advertise around these listings, at least it’s an honest representation and the consumer can decide if they want to contact the professional that actually represents the property and its owner, or to contact a random agent that infringes on another agent’s listings by advertising near them.

As you might imagine, most real estate professionals are pleased about this rule change, but there a few people that don’t like it. Those people are primarily the buyers’ agents that feel they somehow have earned the right to mislead consumers by pretending to be an expert on properties they know nothing about, or that may not even be within their geographic area or area of expertise.

To be fair, publishers have been given 60 days to adapt their data feeds to accept the new field and display it. Sandicor intends to work closely with the syndicators to terminate the data feed to web sites that do not comply. 

A second move by Sandicor to help its brokers regain control of their data is to limit the photos going to syndicators to only four (4) photos.   Member IDX sites and the Sandicor public facing site will display all of the photos and agent remarks in the MLS system.  Sandicor’s goal is to make member IDX sites a much better source for the consumer seeking real estate information.  This move will eventually train consumers to visit a broker or the MLS site to see all the property data and pictures.

Congratulations to Sandicor for taking steps to control the misuse of listing data and drive traffic back to its members!

Jan. 9, 2012 - National Broker Survey on IDX and Social Media Rules

The IDX Policy draft reviewed at the November 2011 Anaheim NAR meetings, designed to address social media, mobile "apps", and provide other modernizations, was not found acceptable by attending brokers, associations and MLS leaders - or by the blogosphere in general. 

Clareity Consulting, in cooperation with REAL Trends, performed a survey in December 2011 to learn more about brokers’ opinions and concerns regarding the proposed IDX and Social Media changes to NAR’s MLS Policy.  Nearly 700 broker-owners from across the country participated.  This survey should provide grounding for future discussions and decisions regarding the evolution of IDX policy.

Clareity will submit this report to the new PAG that NAR has assembled. Clareity will also invite the PAG to provide an update at our annual MLS Executive Workshop March 1-2, 2012 and solicit additional feedback from MLS executives and leadership to contribute to the process. 

Following are key survey results:

·         On the question of whether IDX listings should be displayed on specific social media sites (Facebook, Google+, and Twitter)  brokers were evenly divided.  Also, 74% were in opposition to IDX listings being used on a more broadly defined set of websites, and there was no consensus on how one would easily draw the line between the enumerated social media sites and others.

·         If the policy is nonetheless expanded, compliance is clearly an issue:

o   88% agree that, if listings are sent to third party websites, it must be a rule that the broker responsible for sending the listing to that site must be clearly identified so they can take responsibility for display policy non-compliance.

o   Over two-thirds of brokers indicated that if listings were sent to third party websites, it should be required to tell the MLS where the listings have been posted, so the MLS can manage compliance.

·         If the policy is expanded to include non-participant sites, 85% of respondents favored providing an opt-out for display on non-participant sites (or sites where the owner/operator is unclear).

·         79% of brokers feel IDX policy needs to be updated – though most of that interest correlated with an interest to use IDX data on mobile “apps”, not for social media use. 77% are in favor of expanding IDX policy to permit display of IDX listings in “apps” on mobile devices.

The divide between brokers on the subject of using IDX listings on social media sites seems to fuel the argument to not allow for the expansion of IDX display to social media sites. However, Clareity believes...

Please read the full report for the rest of the story and to see the results for all of the questions.  A PDF of the report is also available for free download.  

Link to survey results:

http://www.callclareity.com/Broker-Survey-IDX-Social-Media-Rule-Changes-January-2012.pdf

Jan. 4, 2012 - MLS Value and Brand: Looking Back and at the Road Ahead

The MLS industry has both an image problem and a value perception problem. Clareity’s talked about it before; nonetheless, the issue is still there, so we’re trying again in this post. It’s really a branding issue, but we’re not talking about dotMLS or even MLS-certified listings. The problem is that people, especially many MLS subscribers, think of the MLS as providers of the MLS system. In turn, they think of the MLS system solely as a place where listings are entered and searched. As a result, people make statements like, “Two more fields and Zillow could be an MLS,” and “Why are we paying for something people get for free on Realtor.com?” MLS organizations provide much more than a listings database. The industry needs to make sure everyone - especially their own subscribers - knows it.

To quote from Matt’s 2008 Council of MLS kickoff speech, in which he encouraged MLSs to increase their value:

Successful deployment of real estate information systems has typically been both the charter and strength of the MLS organization. However, there has been some tension because the MLS system—until now, the MLS organization’s primary function—was chartered solely as a system to facilitate cooperation and compensation. Today’s real estate systems need to go beyond that, including not just the MLS, but public records, transaction management, forms, digital document management, lockbox systems, showing scheduling management and feedback systems, listing syndication, professional-grade automated valuation modeling software, real estate customer relationship management and lead management, and  a bevy of other tools. [A] great deal of additional information also is needed to provide professional services, including unlisted property information from homebuilders and FSBOs, mortgage and foreclosure information, environmental information, agent and property ratings,  and community, school, and demographic information. To be clear, I’m not talking about just providing a library of additional information; I’m talking about well-integrated tools and information that help the professional provide efficient and timely customer service, unparalleled capability in interpreting the plethora of property and population information available, and highly reliable and secure settlement processes. [But] if MLS organizations are not re-chartered, re-missioned, and re-branded more generically as providers of information systems for organized real estate, we will continue to see pushback against the MLS organization offering systems that don’t solely address [the traditional core missions of] cooperation and compensation.
 

Of course, one of the main differentiators between MLSs and third parties with respect to that role is all of the work that goes into creating the most accurate data possible through manual and automated rule enforcement. Though challenges remain, the data quality work MLSs perform at the local level is another core MLS value.

Unfortunately, many MLS organizations are still experiencing value and value perception problems that Clareity has, since the mid-1990s, been encouraging industry leaders to work toward solving. Some MLSs, including many larger ones providing services to a large percentage of real estate professionals, have increased their value, providing some of the items mentioned above in a well-integrated fashion, bundling some in the core offering, and offering others as part of a tiered service or à la carte model. But there’s a long way to go. According to NAR’s 2010 MLS technology survey, only 8% of MLSs have intensive quality control, and only 43% have “some amount“ of quality control. That’s not great, since data quality is a key part of what differentiates MLS from advertising portals. From that same survey, we learn that just 14% of MLSs have integrated transaction management, only 19% have digital document management (not just attaching documents to listings), only 36% have integrated forms (auto-filling from MLS), only 47% have parcel maps with integrated tax data, and only 55% allow for tax auto-fill into MLS listings. We need to do better! MLSs that don’t have the resources, buying power, or operational efficiencies to provide professional-grade service will probably be absorbed by others over the next decade. Industry experts all seem to agree that MLS consolidation is in the future. The 69% of MLSs that aren’t considering it or planning for that future are probably not the ones that are going to survive. 

At the Clareity MLS Workshop and in Matt’s 2009 NAR speech on the “Future of MLS,” he introduced the idea of MLSs providing an “app store” to allow for further à la carte service offerings by MLSs, including a choice of the core MLS system as well as ancillary products at the agent level. This would allow agents to differentiate better within a market and for the MLS to offer more integrated products and services without raising core dues. Two years later, we’re starting to see that vision brought to life in Denver and other markets. But, as we’ve said many times before, the integrations will always be too limited without better data standards. We encourage MLSs not to sit passively by in the standards effort, as data standards are the rails on which your future business will run.

Also, many MLSs have gone through difficult times over the past few years as they and their vendors fell behind in offering “cross-browser” technology solutions. At long last, the industry has nearly solved that problem, but while doing so, it has mostly ignored the emerging use of mobile devices, offering only fairly limited tools to subscribers. This won’t work long-term. Mobile solutions, if designed well, can help agents be more responsive to consumers more easily and can help agents and consumers access the information they need when they need it. MLSs can’t just continue to offer a limited functionality mobile solution and fall further behind the free consumer apps being offered. 

But, no matter how comprehensive the MLS offering is, and even if the MLS offers it on mobile devices too, it won’t be any good if we can’t change the image of MLS with subscribers. Far too many subscribers have the misconception that the MLS organization just manages a listing database, not much different from that managed by advertising sites. This misconception results in constant pushback on dues and, of course, ridiculous blogs spelling out doom for MLS because it’s so easy to field a listing database, right? MLSs need to re-mission and re-brand to remain viable and valuable in the future.

In 2012, keep pushing, keep innovating, keep re-inventing, keep providing better value, keep exploring cooperation with neighboring MLSs—but most importantly, keep communicating the value of what you do. MLSs are not just managers of listing database software. Make sure your subscribers know that.
 

Nov. 22, 2011 - How Clareity Consulting Is Constructively Working on the IDX Policy Issue

By now everyone already knows that the IDX Policy draft reviewed at the Anaheim meetings, designed to address social media, "apps", and provide other modernizations, was not ready for prime-time. You've probably read Jay Thompson's open letter describing how broken the policy creation process is.

It would be so easy for us to develop policy improvements on our own, but it's not enough for us to be smart or able to craft good language - even with input from some of the smart folks who comment on our blog. We feel a more rigorous process is needed all along the way, involving stakeholders throughout.  So, during NAR meetings, Clareity Consulting crafted a process, grounded in stakeholder involvement, to constructively address this issue and hopefully emerge with an optimal result.

1. To keep future policy efforts grounded in what brokers actually want, Clareity is conducting a broker survey on IDX Policy changes, in collaboration with Realtrends. 

2. Clareity will facilitate a small workgroup to develop a policy draft reflecting broker interests. The workgroup will include some smart, interested brokers and MLS executives/staff (we already have some lined up, including Council of MLS representation), likely an attorney, and ideally someone from the new NAR PAG (TBD). The policy recommendation we create will be heavily annotated to provide the thinking behind each change, so that future discussion does not require re-hashing old discussions and policy elements that we rejected ("Did you think of this?")

3. We will vet the policy draft along with annotations with MLS executives (including Council of MLS leadership) at the Clareity MLS Executive Workshop at the beginning of March and document recommended changes. MLS Workshop recommended changes, if any, will be reviewed by the workgroup and possibly incorporated. Even if unincorporated, change recommendations will remain documented by the workgroup.

4. In early March, right after Clareity's MLS Executive Workshop, the policy recommendation draft and survey results will be published to the public and contributed to the NAR IDX Workgroup/PAG to help move the policy forward. Since this recommendation is grounded in stakeholder involvement, it should be much closer to adoptable.

Clareity believes that, when it comes to a policy that is supposed to represent the assets and interests of brokers, the first step is to understand what brokers want from the policy. Second, we need to involve key stakeholders - bright, knowledgeable and interested parties.  And third, to create a well-vetted work product well prior to midyear NAR meetings allowing ample time for review and discussion before going to DC. If we do this, and the NAR policy making body leverages the work product, the upcoming IDX policy meetings should be more productive, and policy can be brought into line with current needs.

We hope you’ll support this effort and we welcome your suggestions and ideas.

- Gregg  & Matt


 

Nov. 18, 2011 - NAR 2011 Expo Report by Clareity

Clareity Consulting just completed it's recap of the 2011 NAR Convention and Trade Show in Anaheim.  Along with the trade show hightlights, we wrote recaps of the major MLS and Association Executive sessions we attended and added insights wherever we could.

http://www.callclareity.com/nar2011/

There is some good stuff in here - we hope you enjoy the read - 

Gregg and Matt

Oct. 31, 2011 - Don't Mistake Dropbox For a Real Estate Document Management System

Recently, I've heard some brokers and agents talking about using Dropbox for managing all their real estate documents. I'm glad they are learning about new tools on the Internet, but this is a situation where a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Don't get me wrong - I love Dropbox for sharing photos with friends and family, but it should not be mistaken for a real estate business solution. A few of my MLS and broker clients are getting asked by their agents, "Why are we paying for document management when there's Dropbox?" Here's the answer.

Dropbox is a useful document repository for casual sharing, but it is not a document management system. Real estate document management systems do things that Dropbox just doesn’t. Document management systems let you control access to what you share; to individuals, teams, offices, regions, companies, settlement service providers and consumers, who all need different and precise levels of access to that content. Access control is critical when dealing with sensitive consumer and company information. The newly announced and rather expensive “Dropbox for Teams” may provide a limited amount of this capability, but we will have to see how good a fit it actually is.  Comments and changes to documents can also come from people who aren’t the core system users, and Dropbox doesn’t provide logins for non-team members. A true document management system can help you securely share and manage these comments and changes. Dropbox just doesn’t meet the challenge.

A real estate document management system also needs to provide a convenient way to get documents into the system. Professional document management systems allow documents to be faxed in, since not all stakeholders and consumers may be able to create electronic documents for upload. Once the documents are in the system, users need to be able to mark up documents and send them with the annotations.

Professional document management systems also provide versioning: retaining clean and marked-up versions and ensuring that the newest version is used and not accidentally overwritten by an older one. Ideally, these systems can also merge documents (e.g., the contract, counter-offer, and addendum) to create the legal contract for review, and manage electronic signatures. Document management systems also let you easily get documents out of the system, letting you fax documents outbound without requiring manual downloading, printing, or faxing steps. Most banks and other settlement service providers still require documents to be faxed. Dropbox does none of these tasks.

From a broker or transaction manager’s perspective, actual workflow management is key to creating efficiency. They must be able to mandate which documents are required and they have a view across transactions, enabling them to identify which documents are missing and which ones need to be reviewed. Being able to mandate templates for documents, have a process of document approval and review, comment quickly and easily on documents, and track signatures are important features in a real estate document management system. Again, Dropbox does none of these things.

From a management perspective, it can also be important to be able to create an archive file for the transaction, including proof of who saw which documents when. Yet again, Dropbox doesn’t do this.

Dropbox doesn’t simply lack features. Most people are aware that Dropbox has suffered from security problems, in terms of both authentication and how encryption is used. To quote law.com, "Dropbox's security breach ... and the online storage company's recent controversial changes to its terms-of-service, should be a red flag for anybody who works with customer data. No matter how convenient, a data storage service is useless if it cannot guarantee the privacy of your information."

Some brokers may be willing to give up some of these features if the alternative costs a lot less. But Dropbox does not actually cost less. The professional/team version of Dropbox works out to be about twice as expensive as the real document management solutions already in our industry, with few of the features and only limited storage space.

I appreciate that Dropbox has a lot of press and hype behind it, and it's cool to say you're using the cloud. Nonetheless, I hope that agents, brokers, Associations, and MLS operators will be more careful in evaluating their professional business systems and will select one that will meet their needs now and into the future.

Oct. 20, 2011 - Attention Brokers: Regain Control of Your Listing Data

Reprinted by permission of REAL Trends. The original article is located here: http://realtrends.com/products/newsletter/view?nid=36&pid=272&page=8

by Travis Saxton, REAL Trends marketing and technology manager

Over the past few years, REAL Trends and Clareity Consulting have been working together to identify flaws in the listing syndication arena and have surveyed numerous brokers in joint studies to identify problems with the current model. While most brokers would agree that their control has diminished these days, a new technology solution is on the horizon to help broker’s regain control of their listing data. We are advocates for this new system. To start the introduction of this solution, we must first identify the problem:

Listing syndication has run rampant and with so many publishers out there, it is virtually impossible for a broker to stay on top of all the sources. Terms of use is another area that is virtually impossible to monitor and stay on top of a changing environment. You may think you’re sending your listings to one web site that you really want your listings on, but due to their terms of use you are actually sending to, in some cases, a couple hundred additional sites where data accuracy may not be of utmost importance. This is causing a problem when the data becomes outdated or posted inaccurately.

The good versus the bad: With so many online publishers and all of them operating differently, how can a broker possibly know all of the defining characteristics and business practices of each publisher? For example which publishers send you traffic, which post listing agent data, which post listing agent data above "preferred agents," and which offer you search engine optimization value and which take all of it for themselves? This list can go on and for a broker this can be overload.

At REAL Trends, we attempt to listen to and empower our broker audience and in a joint study published with Clareity Consulting in 2010, through a national study on this topic, identified these four areas for improvement many of which overlap with

1. Provide brokers more insight and control;
2. Enhance MLS security and control over where the listings were syndicated;
3. Enforce syndication integrity and accuracy;
4. Ensure the information wasn’t used to sell leads back to brokers.

Enter SAFE Syndication Proposed Solution from Clareity Security

SAFE Syndication is a technology solution that addresses most of the major concerns and the growing problems that have been identified above. Clareity Security’s SAFE Syndication solution includes an integration partnership with ListHub making it simpler for brokers to benefit from additional reporting on the sites they syndicate listings to. SAFE Syndication delivers value to brokers by offering:

• Improved data accuracy which improves REALTOR brand and image
• Consolidated reporting and compliance management as it relates to data display rules and syndication agreements.
• A publisher report card which can be integrated with ListHub data that measures the listing portals/publishers on criteria defined by the Broker (such as the Clareity Bill of Rights).

How SAFE Syndication Works

The SAFE Syndication system is essentially a solution that allows brokers or franchises to better monitor the portals or publishers that they syndicate their data to. Clareity has identified a bill of rights (see below) on behalf of real estate brokers that can be used to implement a scoring or rating system. Brokers can customize their own criteria as well and use this ranking system to determine who is using your data in a manner most advantageous to you and your own interests. Using an objective set of criteria to measure publishers and portals allows brokerage leaders to make better informed decisions for their business and thus increases the quality control that is a must in our industry. This scoring system will also bring some of the power and leverage back to the brokers in negotiating their terms of use for sites they syndicate to.

SAFE Syndication also makes auditing and complaint tracking and resolution simpler which ensures the utmost data accuracy for your listings. Listing accuracy is a growing problem as many brokers don’t fully understand the implications or in many cases the number of "other" syndicators that are using their data. From personal experience in my recent home search, I used several listing syndicators to identify homes I wanted to see with my REALTOR. In multiple circumstances I sent lists of 10+ properties to my REALTOR only to be discouraged that less than half of the listings were current! This created a frustrated consumer and an inefficient waste of valuable time for my REALTOR.

The SAFE Syndication tool offers easy access to data that helps brokers better monitor their listing syndication agreements and measure how publishers and portals are performing against the criteria established by the broker. It will become a one stop destination for empowering and informing a broker in the ultimate goal of regaining the control of listing data.

The Future of Your Data

In the next two months, SAFE Syndication will be launching and beta testing with several brokers. Clareity Security has your best interest in mind, it is a great idea to stay on top of this and if you are interested in becoming a beta tester or would like to get more information regarding SAFE Syndication by Clareity Security feel free to contact Travis Saxton at 303-741-1000 or tsaxton@realtrends.com. As always REAL Trends will continue to monitor and stay on top of the cutting edge trends that impact the residential brokerage industry. We will update this story as more information and the launch of SAFE syndication is complete.

Syndication Bill of Rights

With permission from Clareity Consulting It’s time for the industry to crystallize what it expects from publishers and communicate it! One approach would be to define a set of rules which would demand free carriage of brokers’ listings and free lead-generation. While appealing, such an approach is unrealistic.

Running a national real estate portal and attracting a sizeable audience is costly. Other industries operate under a "pay-to-play" classified model. In the apartments segment (Rent.com, Apartments. com, etc.), automobiles segment (cars.com, autotrader.com), and recruitment (Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, HotJobs.com), paid inclusion is the norm. If the content provider doesn’t pay, the listing doesn’t appear. In the residential resale real estate space, the NAR-REALTOR.com model of a "free basic listing", established in 1996, set the standard. In real estate, sites display listings for free, but then are required to come up with a monetization plan.

Clareity believes that the appropriate goal is not to eliminate publisher revenues, but rather to establish rules that are fair and adequately protect the rights of the content owner while allowing the publishers to operate a business with reasonable returns. So, here’s a draft of a Syndication Bill of Rights focusing primarily on the content owner – the broker, and partially on the MLS syndicating on their behalf:

Clareity Bill of Rights for Listing Syndication

1. The publisher will display the listing firm contact information, including phone number, in a prominent location on the listing detail page at no cost.
2. The publisher will provide a prominent link to the broker, agent, and/or MLS website, home page or property detail page if provided, and will not use "nofollow" tags that negatively affect the SEO benefit of such links.
3. If the publisher displays non-listing agent/firm information, then: (a) the full contact information for the listing agent/firm must be displayed at no charge, and these parties must be clearly identified as the listing agent/firm; (b) the listing/agent firm information must be displayed more prominently than the third-party agent/firm information; and (c) the site must not send leads to third party agents or firms if the consumer has not selected them as a contact recipient, and non-listing agents and firms will not be the default (pre-selected) choice for consumer contact.
4. The publisher has a process for ensuring data accuracy with the data provider(s); ensuring data is updated or removed as appropriate, at least every three days.
5. The publisher displays the date the listing data was last confirmed and updated, and the name of the data provider.
6. The publisher respects the intellectual property of brokers and MLSs. The terms and conditions do not require brokers and MLSs to give up rights (beyond display rights) or to grant rights in perpetuity. The terms and conditions allow the listings to be used only for the explicit purpose for which they were provided. An accuracy disclaimer and copyright notice is displayed, attributing the copyright holder of the information. The publisher must obtain explicit consent from the data provider for any other uses or derivative works.
7. The publisher does not re-syndicate, sub-license, power, or display listings on other websites without informing the data provider and obtaining their consent.
8. The publisher will provide aggregate statistics regarding traffic, at no cost, to the data provider.
9. The publisher provides reasonable mechanisms for preventing screen scraping and misuse of the listing data, understanding that some listing information must be exposed to search engines.
10. The publisher does not re-syndicate to or "power" sites that fail to uphold the previously described rights.

Sep. 16, 2011 - Big LPS and CoreLogic News - What It Means for MLSs

This past week LPS, the vendor with the largest number of MLS accounts, allowed members of the management team to buy out about half of its business lines, creating a new company called Real Estate Digital (RED). The new company will mostly service the broker and agent platforms, as well as provide some services that MLSs might find of interest, such as websites, REALM advertising and ReDataVault - but the Paragon and REInsight MLS platforms will remain with LPS.

RED should be a great company out of the gate. While RED still has a data aggregation service contract, helping LPS on behalf of RPR, and RED will still purchase data from LPS for its broker products and web sites, they really are independent companies. The market will view RED and its products quite a bit differently from when there was title company baggage. RED is now free from those perceived shackles and can sell to anyone - and their sales should go up. RED has just over 100 employees,  over 20 million dollars in annual revenue, and a diverse set of products right out of the gate - without the corporate overhead of a large public company, RED is clearly profitable and now has the freedom to invest in R&D and not worry about quarterly results and corporate politics.

What it means for Paragon?  We think its good news there too. LPS can still market and bundle RED products with the MLS system. And it's great news that the MLS group is staying inside the LPS organization under analytics and closer to the public records group, since property record centric search is the future of the company. The MLS group was more separated from public records under the old organizational structure - the new structure should be an advantage.

The Corelogic acquisition of Tarasoft shouldn't be a surprise to industry veterans because innovative MLS software companies are usually acquired by larger vendors in the space - BORIS, Terradatum, Homeseekers, etc. While this effectively removes a leading competitor from the space it does allow more MLS system choice from Corelogic for its customers and also will probably allow for better integrations between products and cutovers between products. We think some Corelogic customers will like the idea of implementing Tarasoft Matrix, which doesn't require Flash yet is cross-browser compatible. We also believe that Realist customers will also have another choice of system with great integrations, assuming CoreLogic creates the tighter integrations between Realist and Matrix. Hopefully, CoreLogic handles this acquisition as it did the Offutt Systems / InnoVia one - leaving the Tarasoft team to execute the vision that Tarasoft customers have bought into while providing the resources and integrations that will provide further advantage to those customers.

The changes this week should be a positive thing for the MLS industry - we'll know more going forward!

Aug. 17, 2011 - NAR email regarding Franchisor IDX Display

NAR just sent out an email to MLSs regarding IDX Policy and Franchisor Display:

 "Following the 2011 Midyear Meetings, the NAR Leadership Team appointed a presidential advisory group (“PAG”) to address several aspects of the IDX policy including a provision allowing franchisor display of IDX listings. That provision went into effect in January of this year. It was subsequently amended in May to require listing broker “opt in” rights. The PAG met last week and the Leadership Team has received the PAG’s recommendation regarding franchisor display. The PAG recommends that the policy be rescinded and that NAR support syndication of listings as an alternative method for franchise organizations and similar entities (e.g., real estate brokerage networks and regional real estate firms) to access and display listings. It is anticipated that this recommendation will go to the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee in November. The PAG also studied other aspects of the IDX policy, including the display of IDX listings using mobile applications, via social media and using RSS subscription. The Leadership Team has not yet received this portion of the PAG’s report."

This is basically an affirmation of the decision made previously - non-participants should not receive data under rules set up for participants to cooperate around data display; brokers should decide which third parties (i.e. franchises and broker networks) they want their listings sent to for display. From a franchise point of view, it means franchises are also free to innovate, creating mobile, social media, and other applications that may fall into grey areas of IDX. So, from Clareity's point of view: good call!

At the Inman Conference, Gregg had the opportunity to speak with three national franchisor leaders about the IDX subject.  Gregg asked them how they felt about the scenario where they are just treated as non participants in the MLS, such as a Yahoo!, Trulia or Zillow, and have the rights to obtain a national MLS data feed that is not encumbered with IDX rules.  In other words, would you like to essentially have the same data, but not have to play by the IDX rules?  The response was very similar.  The Franchisors want to remain supportive of the brokerage industry and cooperate within it.  They seemed willing to accept less if that’s what it takes, rather than tear up the industry with divisiveness.  One executive felt that the strength of Realtors still remained in sticking together as an industry, and despite his feelings, he did not think it was worth fighting about this issue, and certainly not starting a war where one broker shatters IDX rules for perceived competitive advantage.

So, NAR's letter seems to indicate they are heading in a positive direction - we'll see if the Committee keeps to this path in November - we hope so!

Jul. 26, 2011 - Third-party sites DO NOT rule the real estate roost

Recently, I was surprised by an Inman article, entitled "Third-party sites rule the real estate roost" which concluded that "third-party publishers are capturing the vast majority of traffic to real estate websites nationwide". In the Experian chart of Chicago traffic presented in the article, if one adds up the traffic of Realtor.com, Yahoo! Real Estate, Trulia.com, Zillow, Homes.com and AOL Real Estate (the relevant non-rental sites from the chart) they only add up to 24.93% of the online exposure and individually, in Chicago, the largest market share was Realtor.com with a 5.93% market share. The top publishers' total share of 24.93% is clearly not a "vast majority". And certainly, despite the recent hype surrounding Zillow, they only clocked in with a 4.28% market share according to this article.

Still, compare all this online exposure to the old local reach of newspapers, especially in markets where there was one primary, such as the Chicago Tribune. Putting an ad in that paper used to be almost unavoidable. That newspaper was THE channel to the Sunday morning breakfast table where consumers sat around looking at listings. There weren't any other options. Compare that with these websites, if you will. If hypothetically Zillow or some other site crossed the line with brokers, in terms of their business model, and brokers decided en masse to not send them listings, that web site's market share would be re-absorbed in a heartbeat by other websites.  Let me make it more clear: at one point Friendster ruled the roost of social media. Then MySpace did. Even the mighty Facebook is now under pressure to get its act together before Google+ gives people a better solution and too many make the move. In the heyday of newspapers, there weren't other options and the newspapers had a lot of power but in the Internet age it's no big deal to ditch a website that you don't like - it's far more difficult for any website to gain and keep a hold of participants.

Let's go back and consider one more thing from that Experian Chicago market share chart. It's important to understand that the chart represents online market share, not the share of the actual overall marketing exposure of the home. To use a figure from a recent NAR survey, only 36% of home buyers actually found their home online. So, one way to look at it is the online market share is only 36% of the total overall marketing market share. And if all the leading websites together added up to about 25% of the online marketing market share, that's only 9% of the overall marketing market share. And Zillow, with it's 4.28% of the Chicago online marketing market share, yields only 1.54% of the overall marketing market share. Could a Chicago broker not explain to the home seller that the 1.54% of total exposure was not particularly significant? Greg Robertson posed the question of whether Zillow is that famous "lion coming over the hill". It's a good question, and I'm glad he asked it. My belief is that the answer - perhaps until recently - was "No". But, now that they have somehow convinced people they are the king of jungle and people are laying down tribute in front of them in the form of a strangely high stock valuation and capitalization, they might be able to use that tribute to actually build up their power, and become the lion in reality.

Still, I like the way one participant in Inman's Data Summit put it: "Internet, schminternet; who brought you the last deal?"

 

May. 31, 2011 - MLS Public Websites

Today, Clareity is publishing an update to a previous study of MLS public web sites after we took another look and found vast improvements by some vendors, but virtually no change in others.  At least two more vendors are currently developing premium web site products for MLSs and pledged to offer substantial upgrade options soon. The competition is heating up and MLS operators will soon have more options to deliver a better consumer experience.

To see how the MLS vendors stack up and check out the new study results at http://www.callclareity.com/MLS-Public-Websites-2011.pdf

Any MLS that offers a public site or is considering a new strategy should find this report informative and valuable.

May. 17, 2011 - Critical Clarifications of the NAR IDX/Franchise Rule

There are some critical aspects of the NAR IDX/Franchise opt-in rules that our clients were unclear of after the mid-year meetings. We asked NAR for some clarifications, which they provided, and which we are sharing below. You should expect this guidance to be formalized and provided directly by NAR in the very near future. However, since Clareity has MLS clients already working full-tilt to implement the opt-in in ways that may be contrary to NAR's guidance, we wanted to share this information immediately.

 Following is the guidance NAR plans to offer the industry regarding the IDX policy:

The action of the Board of Directors provides that while the current IDX policy will remain in effect until the committee reports back to the Board at the 2011 Annual Convention,  effective thirty days following the Directors’ action, display of IDX listings on franchisors’ websites will be permitted only if a listing broker affirmatively consents (“opts in”) to franchisor indexing and display.

That means:

• Franchisors have until Monday, June 13 to discontinue display of the listings of MLS Participants who have not affirmatively consented to display of their listings on franchisor websites.
• MLSs should implement means for Participants to affirmatively consent to display of their listings on franchisor websites.  Participants’ consent to franchisor display can be blanket or granted only to specified franchisors at the option  of Participants.
• Any direct data feed from MLSs to franchisors can only (after June 13th)  include the listings of Participants who have affirmatively consented to display of their listings on the franchisor(s)’ site(s).
•  Franchisees who provide IDX information directly to their franchisor - or have their site indexed by the franchisor - will need to let the franchisor know which participants have affirmatively consented to display of their listings on the franchisor's site.

Clareity would like to call special attention to the part of the guidance that specifies that Participants need to be able to opt-in to individual franchise sites, versus just having a single "opt into franchise sites" type field.

If you are an MLS executive or staff person, feel free to share your best practices about implementing this policy here.

Apr. 18, 2011 - Syndication to Real Estate Portals: Problems and Solutions