Minneapolis, Minnesota
Matt Cohen is Clareity Consulting's Chief Technologist. Matt consults to MLSs, Associations, brokerages, and many real estate industry software companies and has spoken at conferences, workshops and leadership retreats around the country on a wide variety of MLS-related topics. Matt is a well-regarded real estate industry expert on industry trends, software design, product management, project management, and information security. Clareity Consulting was founded in 1996 to provide information technology consulting to the real estate industry and its related businesses.
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Jul. 23, 2008
"Which MLS system is the best?" Clients perpetually ask me that question, and it also regularly comes up on email lists and in web-based discussions.
To some extent, the question is a bit silly – akin to asking someone, "What’s the best place to eat in town?" Of course no two people agree on what restaurant is the best – they have different cuisine preferences, tastes, service requirements and budgets. One person will have a good experience at a restaurant and recommend it, while another will go to the same restaurant - maybe on an 'off' night - and have a bad experience and subsequently warn people away. We’ve got to recognize that answering the MLS question is similarly difficult.
Most vendors have both very happy customers and unhappy ones, as well as a number that are between those extremes. When one asks the "Which MLS system is the best?" question on a email group or web site, you will likely get answers from both extremes – and it’s just not that helpful. Every year Clareity Consulting performs a survey of MLS Customer Satisfaction (e.g. http://www.callclareity.com/7thAnnualMLSCustomerSatisfactionSurvey.pdf) to try to provide a more comprehensive answer to how each MLS vendor is doing – but while you have to take reference checking and customer satisfaction into account in such a system selection decision, the experience of others is not necessarily the best or only predictor of your own experience.
What differentiates the MLS options, really? At a high level, system and service. After all, MLS vendors are Application Service Providers (ASP) – they provide both system and service, and need to be evaluated on both. Service may seem easy to evaluate, but it can be difficult to measure. If the vendor is providing support to staff or MLS subscribers, what call center metrics can they share with you? How much service will they provide in customizing the system to your specific needs and how will they respond to ongoing enhancement requests? The “company fit” and relationship that your MLS will have the vendor can sometimes be difficult to gauge in advance. As for the system, sometimes things we take for granted, such as speed, reliability/accuracy, and uptime may not be a given, at least not these days. Each system also has a unique feature set for the web-based system as well as for PC-based software, PDA, or voice interface – we have to answer the question, “What would your subscribers be giving up if they were moved to a new system and what would they gain?” The MLS staff also has to consider how much functionality there is in the system to help them provide a high level of service to subscribers – this may includes features like listing compliance workflows, easy to use robust RETS / data feed setup, and features providing staff with direct control over many aspects of the system. There are other considerations these days as well – for example if your market is considering a data share, how much experience does the vendor have implementing them and what is their track record? Finally, though the vendors are generally very cost competitive, sometimes cost enters the equation. I always advise clients to choose the system they really want over a system they don’t want nearly as much but with which they could save some money. I don’t think any MLS ever regretted selecting a great system that they could afford, but I know of plenty that regretted going with the lesser preferred system to save money.
Changing systems is hard for MLS staff and subscribers alike, and it isn’t something to do lightly. I typically perform an extensive member survey as part of the selection process, and more than once in the past year clients have seen such high levels of satisfaction with their current system that they’ve decided there was no way a new system would provide enough benefit to justify moving to it. Of course, you have to find a good balance of listening and leading – if all MLS executives did was listen to subscribers, we may still be using books! Also, thoroughly evaluating the benefits of moving to a new MLS system involves rigorous work, and building a robust Request for Proposal (RFP) and evaluating the proposals obtained from qualified vendors as part of an MLS Selection Process is one of the more complex services my company provides.
Which MLS system is the best? Honestly, there’s no one answer that’s true for every potential customer. Only with rigorous evaluation of your system and service needs and comparing those needs to the capabilities, system, and services provided by each vendor can I even begin to know which vendors may be good to include in an RFP – let alone have some sense of the answer the final question: “Which MLS system might be best for your MLS?” When I’m involved in a selection process, my goal is to make sure that all of the appropriate information needed to support the decision has been gathered and presented clearly so that the MLS leadership (board of directors, committee, task force, etc.) can easily answer the question for themselves.
Jul. 9, 2008
Check this out! RETS IQ RETS Library™ is a Java API that allows simple access to RETS servers. The API is designed to allow developers to connect to RETS servers and execute searches, photo downloads, metadata requests and updates without having to deal with the nuts and bolts of the RETS protocol.
Mind the license.
May. 30, 2008
It can be a daunting task for consumers to slog through daily MLS prospecting search results and even consumer-oriented web sites to find the listings they are interested in. With increasing property inventories, consumers will need to expend even more effort to find the properties that appeal to them in search results that will likely grow even larger. We can do better for them.
We need to ask ourselves, "When paging through search results, why do consumers click on this property or that one?" Usually, they've already set their search criteria and are only looking at properties in their desired geography, price range and (using residential as the primary example hereafter) the right number of bedrooms, bathrooms, required square footage, etc. Of course they desire a bargain, and are looking for properties that are the best balance of price and their other required criteria. But consumers are also highly visual, so they look at thumbnails and click on homes that match the style, exterior, and colors that appeal to them. That's obvious, right? Well, why are we making consumers page through dozens or even hundreds of properties every day to hunt out the bargains and to find the properties that appeal to them in other ways? We should stop continually sorting on a single arbitrary criteria, most typically price, and start presenting first and foremost the homes that meet the consumers' desires.
How can this be done? Other industries have already shown us the way. Once you look at a few items for sale on Amazon.com, they start showing you other items you might like to buy. Once you rent and/or rate some movies on Netflix.com, they suggest other movies you might wish to put in your queue. My favorite example might be Pandora internet radio, which lets you set some initial criteria for music you want to hear, then fine tunes your playlist as you rate the songs you hear or move to skip the rest of the song they are playing.
We can use similar methods. We can see what properties users click into to see details. With some application changes, we could probably collect information on and analyze how long they stayed on each detail page. We could collect information on what properties they email to others or request more information on. This can be a subtle task, termed "establishing intent from gesture", but we don't need to be subtle. We could also, similar to the Netflix and Pandora approaches, have them actively rate properties as part of their search or even in a separate "getting to know you" activity. The rating can be as easy as "thumbs up, thumbs down", could be a more sophisticated five-star rating, and we could even ask what aspect of the property was the primary basis of their rating or have them rate different aspects of each property. The more information we have, the more accurately the system should be able to order the properties shown to consumer to meet their desires. On sites where the consumer is identified via custom link tied to their identity or login, we can track more information over time, but even on anonymous usage sites we can collect some information. At any rate, if the consumer always clicks on two-story houses, on colonial houses, on houses with brick exteriors - we have the information (especially in the MLS system) to sort on and show them similar houses first.
Can this method ever be perfect? Of course not - especially since there are various qualitative aspects of property selection that we don't currently track data for at the current time, and therefore we can't use it in any type of automated process. When consumers are looking at photos and making those split-second judgments, they may look at landscaping, general conditions/curb appeal, and even house color (the trickiest of any criteria to use). Of course, if we start collecting sophisticated ratings (not just 'thumbs up/thumbs down') we can start increasing the amount of data we have an properties and use that information as well. For example, if 43% of 150 consumers rating a specific property poorly did so specifically because of property condition / landscaping, we know that consumers looking for homes in good condition and with good landscaping will probably not like that property. Yes, we have to answer the question of "What happens if the homeowner subsequently improves the condition" ... then there should be a new photo and statistics need to be re-set. But what if agents keep uploading new photos on properties to try to "game" the system? And so on. This isn't simple, by any means, and again, it won't be perfect - but our MLS prospecting results and public site search results could be a lot better than they are right now, and we owe it to ourselves and the consumer to try to improve the property search experience.
I should note that experimenting with this approach could even benefit the real estate professionals, providing them with business intelligence on properties they have listed or even giving them more insight into the buyers they represent. It may provide support to tell the seller that it's time to fix up the front yard or make other property improvements. And we've all heard the phrase, "Buyers are liars," that they can tell you that they must have one thing in a home, then go for something completely different. We could start collecting the type of information needed to more fully understand their needs and provide them with better service.
This blog entry was a continuation of Improving Prospecting and is complementary to Future of MLS Features - 2008.
May. 19, 2008
While at the NAR midyear meetings I had some great conversations with attendees about my recent " Future of MLS Features" article, and I was prompted for some of the additional "incremental change" ideas that I had referenced in that article. I provided a few ideas to those industry colleagues that asked, and here's one of those ideas: how prospecting should be improved.
Prospecting, for those who don't deal with it all the time, is the capability for an MLS user to add a contact (usually a consumer, known as "the prospect") and perform one or more searches based on the prospect's property search criteria, the results of which would be sent to the prospect on a regular basis so that they can interact with the real estate professional and let them know what properties are of interest. In some systems, an HTML email with the property information is sent to the consumer, in other systems just a link to a search results web page is sent to the consumer. Different MLS systems provide differing prospecting workflows, as well as a great number of options and additional functions around this core, but basically they all do the same thing.
The assumption made when this feature was created was that real estate professionals would use it to work with consumers with whom they had an established relationship in order to show the consumers properties more efficiently than they had in the past by driving them around or meeting to show them properties in the book, MLS, etc.. Unfortunately, some users started using the feature to send repeated unsolicited emails to people they have no relationship with. I've heard that some brokers have people that do nothing but set up such problematic prospecting searches - and such users are sending out thousands of emails a day that should not ever be sent out. The result of these activities is that MLS systems run slower with the extra load and MLS providers' email servers are heavily taxed and put on SPAM blacklists, which in turn results in legitimate users' prospecting emails to clients being rejected. The scale of this problem is large, and MLS providers spend significant resources trying to maintain their "white list" status.
How can we solve this problem by making changes to how prospecting works? The answer is two-fold.
The first part is to stop automatically sending out unsolicited emails day after day. This can be accomplished by having the first email sent from an MLS system user to a prospect be more of a generic introductory email, the purpose of which is to encourage the prospect to either opt-in or opt-out. If the prospect does not opt-in, then the system does not perform the regular prospect searches and send them additional emails. The MLS user could be allowed to manually re-send the invitation email, to address issues with emails that have gone awry. Various additional features would need to be put in place to prevent "gaming" of this system (e.g. prevent the user from sending to one email address [that they control] to accept the initial invitation, then change the email address to the prospect's and send without additional opt-in confirmation) - but I am confident MLS providers could be smart in their implementation. But still, this step alone is insufficient to address the whole of the problem...
The second part is to track, on a user-by-user basis, the percentage of prospecting invitations that are never responded to (possibly because people are afraid to click on any link in a SPAM message), those accepted, and those opted-out of. MLS staff should be able to access a report showing the percentages and numbers of each within a time period, sorted by those users with the highest percentage of opt-outs and non-response, with the ability to see the statistical break out and drill down to review all prospecting activity. Those users with exceptionally high percentages of opt-outs and non-response must not have an established relationship with those to whom they are sending prospecting invitations. If the MLS put rules in place regarding prospecting use, this type of reporting capability would allow MLS staff to put appropriate practices in place to provide the monitoring needed for rule compliance.
May. 9, 2008
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to generate discussion on possible MLS system future features by providing a big picture view of the changing relationship of real estate professionals with each other and with consumers, the changing relationship of local and regional MLSs with each other, and to illustrate, at least at a high level, how these changes may be either enabled or reflected technically in the MLS system of the future.
This paper is not focused on detailed description of what features are popular already today, for example:
- Mapping bird's eye or street-level views
- Big pictures in slideshows and flyers
- Total MLS staff control over fields, reports and business rules
- Easy setup/management of RETS data feeds
- Single Sign-On (SSO)
- Public records data intermingled with MLS data in reports and improved statistics
This paper also does not focus on the usual incremental changes to current MLS features, but rather explores the future of MLS systems and their role further ahead.
Clareity always advises our clients during their MLS system selection process focus on the core features ('the steak') and not be overly sold on other features ('the sizzle'). Too often, a largely volunteer based Task Force can be swayed by a single 'sizzle' feature, and forget that most importantly the system must perform core functions such as listing input and search as efficiently and accurately as possible, and that the system must have high availability and fast performance. With some of the more popular MLS vendors currently having significant issues in these core areas, I want to make sure that this paper is not seen as a call to take your eyes off the system core. That said, the definition of core functionality has expanded somewhat in recent years and will continue to expand and change – and we can't ignore that either.
By consulting for many MLS vendors over the last decade, Clareity has strongly contributed in the development of the product vision for today's modern MLS system. Clareity was a strong proponent of features such as integrated contact management and CRM, functionality for assistants and teams, and coordinating all of the leading real estate software vendors on Single Sign-On (SSO) technology and information security improvements. Not every feature we've thought up or recommended has been adopted though. Some ideas, such as good uses for automated valuation models (AVMs), Clareity has advocated for many years, but it took Zillow and Zestimates® to serve the MLS and brokers a wake-up call. AVM's are just now starting to be integrated properly, in just a few MLS systems, using high quality AVM tools from companies like First American and Cyberhomes.com.
What follows in this paper are some of the cool features from my MLS product development notebook. Hopefully some of these features will show up in your MLS system of the future. If you like one or more of these features, ask your vendor for them (or build it yourself, home growers!).
Mapping: Not Just About Showing Property Location
Mapping has currently been used in MLS systems to show the location of properties, and occasionally through data layers and other interactivity, to show information about the property and its surrounding areas. However, mapping has a lot more promise than it has been used for currently.
Mapping can be a great tool for communicating agent knowledge about neighborhoods and communities. In some systems there is currently a way to turn on specific categories of "points of interest" (POI), but does it really help a gourmet seeking a home in a high-end community to show them every McDonalds and Burger King in a two mile radius? Not at all – rather, if the agent shows the consumer that map, it demonstrates that the agent doesn't understand their client. It definitely doesn't show the client that the agent is the neighborhood expert and can help interpret the plethora of information available. So, one key feature for turning maps into a useful tool to build a bridge between agents and consumers is allowing the agent to customize the map, edit the content shown to the consumer, and add user generated mapping content.
Illustrated below, an agent is showing the listings desired by the consumer alongside some specific restaurant and shopping options. You can see that in the Bistro detail shown, customized text and additional information has been entered by the agent, showing the client that they know the neighborhood, and have been to this restaurant before.
For example, if the prospective buyer had a child that studied karate, the agent could have added the nearby dojo to the map, along with the commentary "I think Suzy will really like the karate instructor at this dojo." Or, if the buyers had children in elementary school, the agents could add rich, relevant and even personalized content about the local schools as well.
The key to successful user generated mapping content is for it to be very easy to add the content. It must be easy for agents to add new custom points of interest, pre-fill basic information from existing data sources, and create content libraries that they can leverage to create custom maps for consumers with a minimum of entry or re-entry. Getting these workflows right is critical to feature adoption.
Another area of mapping that could be greatly enhanced is to use mapping layers to show demographics. In many surveys Clareity has performed, agents seem very skittish about this – especially when it comes to showing crime maps. Some agents have legitimate reasons for skittishness – fear of being accused of steering or other violation of fair housing laws are valid concerns – but it's up to real estate professionals to provide the consumer the information they want and need to make a buying decision. If consumers want it and the real estate practitioner won't provide it, they'll get it elsewhere and the value perception of the REALTOR® will continue to decrease. As former NAR president Billy Chee said to me back in 2002, "The consumer is the lion coming over the hill."
Mapping also has great power to display complex information in a way that's very easy for people to interpret. One of my favorite visualizations is the 'weather map' or 'heat map'. Consumers can readily obtain heat maps from Trulia, Zillow, CyberHomes, and others, but not from their agents. Why is this? While some MLS systems already have heat maps to show days on market or price per square foot, it's easy to imagine other heat maps with even more useful information. The example below shows what areas are 'hot' or 'cold' for investors by showing appreciation over time. Such maps could also show vacancy and absorption or even percentage differences between initial asking price and final asking price or sale price, or even show shading representing the percentage of properties in foreclosure.
I've shown 'heat' two ways on the map above – with colored icons and with color shading. It's probably only necessary to use one method or the other. Icons will certainly be technically easier to implement than shading, though at a wider zoom level area shading may make more sense.
Bridging the Gap between Internet and Installed Software
Why make the consumer open up a web browser and go to a web site to see their latest prospect matches? Why even expect they would check their email? Why not 'push' the results right to their computer desktop and get the information right in front of them when they start up their PC? This is both convenience to the consumer and value-add to the agent.
The illustration below shows two Widgets that I created back in 2005 – one designed for the consumer showing the results of a prospect search, the other for the real estate professional, showing listing activity in their market area, along with what emails, inquiries, and tasks would await them when they logged into the MLS.
Toolkits by companies such as Google and Yahoo!, as well as widget capabilities built into Windows and Mac OS, make widget creation fairly easy. Coldwell Banker added a very simple widget to their web site last year, but I'm imagining much more sophisticated widgets, especially for professionals. Recently, I've begun to see capabilities developed to allow even more bridging between the Internet and the desktop – where the widget can store some data locally and provide some functionality even if the user has gone offline. As this technology evolves, I expect that the opportunities opened up by its use will continue to grow.
Integration of Broker System Features
At some point I expect, or at least hope, that MLSs will have much deeper integration with broker back-office systems and/or build in more broker features. There would be significant broker data management and workflow advantages to building features into the MLS such as:
- Lead Generation / Management tools
- Marketing tools
- Competitive analysis for Recruit/Retention
- Content syndication tools (listing distribution to other web)
- Productivity / profitability measurement tool
To dig a bit deeper in one of these areas, an agent productivity / profitability measurement tool may include such elements as:
- Income and Expense Tracking
- List/sell/total production graph and chart
- Drilldown by month / week / day / date range
- Drilldown by enterprise / office / team / agent / listings
- Productivity modeler (Actual / What If)
The "what if" modeler may allow for adjustable components such as commission splits, selling office commissions, desk cost coverage %, closed to list ratio, average marketing time, transactions to list ratio, and more. The system would then be able to show total $, GCI, agent $, company $, market $, desk $, net $, and $ change (from previous and base scenarios).
These types of features have been in various different broker tools – but really depend on the MLS for the data to properly implement them. Again, either the key will be deeper integrations with existing products or building these types of tools right into the MLS.
Features to Better Support Agents
Most MLS features are focused on the agent, but there's still more that can be added to the MLS for them, including:
- Listing presentation or other marketing pieces as robust as the CMA w/ MLS sales statistics and showing data integrated
- Buyer's agent presentation
- Easy mail merge marketing pieces w/ tax data
- A chart/report showing housing value increase or decrease within specific search criteria - to detect price trends within a specific neighborhood - and the ability to set alerts if sale price conditions start to occur for a specific search.
As MLSs continue to regionalize and engage in data shares, creating a better system for agents to find each other and provide referrals will be increasingly important. I believe that more advanced roster search functionality will be important if an agent in one area needs to be able to find the agent in another area to best serve their client. Being able to see who is the expert in the types of properties desired by the client and who is most experienced and 'best' at facilitating buying or selling those properties via statistical analysis is key. Potentially there would even be qualitative agent ratings, open to other real estate professionals or even the consumer. Like eBay ratings, there would be a way to address disputes. There are already a number of web sites providing mechanisms for agent ratings – why wouldn't "organized real estate" want this mechanism to be someplace where we could manage the rules around it and have it integrated with other agent information and statistics? Consumers will have access to several agent rating services – this is inevitable – because everything is being ranked on the Internet.
Integration of Appraiser Data
Will appraisers ever be brought into the fold? Every few years this comes up and new appraiser platforms such as Zaio are developed – though usually they have not succeeded in the long term. Why separate appraisal systems from the MLS system - is there not synergy? Shouldn't data standards such as RETS be worked on together with appraisers? How will they be incented to participate in a common data platform, so that everyone benefits?
RETS Implementations
Continued improvements in the ease of setting up listing syndication and even accepting listing input from broker systems will be possible as RETS continues to evolve. I think these are core MLS functions, and will change the role of the MLS system as diagrammed below. A lot more detail on this subject is available in a separate paper, available from http://www.callclareity.com/MLSsyndication.cfm
MLSs will also need to work to address the security of listing data either being syndicated or even exported directly from the MLS. Because of that latter element of the problem, use of secondary products will always leave a significant issue unattended – unless the solution is 'baked into' the MLS. None of the MLS systems on the market today have established effective controls for solving this issue, though Clareity Consulting attempted to get the ball rolling by sharing plans for such as a system with all the major MLS vendors back in 2004, in a document titled, "Protecting Against Illegitimate Use of Data by Legitimate Users: Processes of Data Licensing, Delivery, and Use Monitoring".
The core of the system, diagrammed below, is to include a process for data use licensing, request and delivery, and verification – all built right into the administrative user's view of the MLS. MLSs could get a handle on where the data should be via the licensing process, data and images would be individually watermarked (yes, I know that data watermarking is a tall order), and methods of efficient compliance management put in place.
I've got to admit that I'm not sure the perceived cost/benefit model will ever make it likely that such a system would be built – but I'd like to see this issue addressed. Once weaknesses in MLS user authentication and protections against hackers are put in place, this area is the largest security challenge for any MLS.
Social Networking
Real estate is, by its nature, a social business - so another area where both standards and deeper integrations may come into play is in social networking. Various major social networking sites have explored development of a common programming interface (API) for social applications across multiple applications - for example the OpenSocial standard (http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/). If MLS functionality expands its capabilities toward social networking, it certainly would be interesting to see how the MLS could interact with other applications through such interfaces, opening up whole new possibilities of how real estate professionals interact with their colleagues and clients.
The Original NAR "Future of MLS PAG" Vision
Originally, the NAR "Future of MLS PAG" vision was to have a central back end data repository, allowing for front-end interface of choice, provided at the local brokerage, MLS or association, vendor, and franchise levels, along with a baseline front end available through the NAR. Diagrammed below, this wasn't a bad idea, though the MLS PAG has since evolved its vision toward something that has seemingly little to do with MLS.
I still think the original vision made a lot of sense, especially at the natural market region level, then being linked together into larger areas. Of course, most MLS systems are not currently architected to use separate back-end databases, but I expect this will change in the future.
Lastly, to facilitate the regional data share process, or even to make it possible for brokerages/agents to have their own custom data shares beyond a single region, MLSs will need to make it easier to automate creation of data mash-ups from different MLSs as much as possible. I imagine a data mapping expert system that facilitates inclusion of multiple data sources, automatically mapping data to a common set and "wizarding" corrections and additional mappings. Of course, the system would still need to reflect the data mapping into reports, statistics, and other parts of the system.
Conclusion
Clareity Consulting is constantly researching new ideas for MLSs. Our expert consultants are regularly engaged in the product management and development process with leading MLS vendors and home grown systems. Through end-user surveys, interaction with MLS executives and staff (80+ of top 100 MLSs have been clients of Clareity), our annual Workshop and attendance at MLS system sales demos, Clareity is constantly taking the pulse of the industry, in terms of what features are desired in an MLS system. But Clareity goes beyond this research, and is always looking ahead.
One of my favorite product-development related quotes is from Henry Ford, great automotive pioneer, who said, "If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses." There's a lesson in that quote for MLSs that say, "We're member driven," and for MLS vendors too focused on the mantra, "We're customer driven." It's important to listen, but it's also important to innovate and lead.
Those who wish to keep the functionality of the MLS more limited may insist that the role of the MLS should be constrained to only those functions needed for the facilitation of cooperation and compensation between brokers. That is, of course, the core of the MLS, but it should also be recognized that the MLS is the core business platform for agents as well, and that the MLS may need to continue to expand to support their needs in a multitude of ways.
What has been described above may be of interest, perhaps may inspire, but it's up to you. We in this industry often passively ask ourselves and our peers, "What is the Future of MLS?" I think we need to take a more active, thoughtful role. To reference a quote attributed to Allan Kay of Apple Computer, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it!" MLS vendors and regional MLS operators can create the future of MLS, both supporting and driving the way local and regional MLSs interact with each other and the rest of the industry, and enabling REALTORS® to interact with consumers in new ways, preserving and enhancing their value as well as the ongoing value of the MLS system itself.
About the Author
Matt Cohen is Clareity Consulting's Chief Technologist. With a dozen years experience in real estate technology, Matt has spoken at many conferences, workshops and leadership retreats internationally and is a well-regarded real estate industry expert on software design, product management, project management, data center reliability, scalability, and information and network security.
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About Clareity
Clareity Consulting was founded in 1996 to provide information technology consulting to the real estate industry and its related businesses. Clareity Consulting provides clients an independent and unique perspective. Clareity has successfully executed a vast array of projects, including:
- Request for Proposals (RFP) for MLS, public records, broker systems, and Transaction Management Systems (TMS)
- Regionalization and data share facilitation
- Contract negotiation
- Information security and business continuity audits
- Executive Recruiting and Placement
- Project planning and management
- Strategic planning
- Software and system design and review
- Software scalability testing
- Mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances
- Market research including surveys and focus groups
- New product marketing and business plans
- Product and integration specifications analysis
More information about Clareity Consulting is available at http://www.CallClareity.com
May. 11, 2007
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The following is a high-level overview of a session from Clareity Consulting's 2007 MLS Executive Workshop. Every year the Clareity's Workshop provides fresh, in-depth updates on the most pressing issues facing MLS executives and leaders and creates an intimate environment for participants to share their knowledge and experience with each other. You can check the dates and/or register for next year's event on the Clareity Consulting web site – www.callclareity.com
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Listings and other real estate content were at one time jealously guarded by brokers, and in turn by the MLS – especially when it came to putting that content on the Internet. Though MLS public web sites are still controversial in some corners, the recent trend has been toward wider distribution of such content and the question of day is no longer "Should my listings be available on multiple Internet sites?" and is more commonly, "Where should I send the listings?" There have been two trends contributing to the current environment: the first trend is the market slow down which has increased pressure on brokers and agents to facilitate greater marketing exposure for properties and the second trend is a part of wider culture, the "Web 2.0" trend of "syndication".
In the "Web 1.0" world, companies wanted all consumers to visit their site and stay as long as possible. In the "Web 2.0" world, the trend is to make content available to other sites or have customized information delivered directly to individual site subscribers. The most common mechanism for this is called "RSS", which stands for Really Simple Syndication.
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So, what we have traditionally referred to as listing distribution could also be referred to as content syndication. Such syndication may benefits all parties. Today, consumers must typically visit multiple sites to see all the listings for their area: Realtor.com/Move.com, Yahoo!, craigslist, Google, NewHome Source, FSBO.com, Trulia, remax.com, coldwellbanker.com and numerous other sites. When listings are fully syndicated, consumers may not need to visit multiple sites. For the broker or agent, syndication drives listing exposure across numerous online platforms - generating new traffic and content exposure — making syndication a free and easy form of advertisement.
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Between the continued growth of listing content syndication and the evolution of data standards such as RETS (the Real Estate Transaction Standard), the MLS may have an evolving role to fill in the collection of data and its syndication. First, RETS 2.0 will make it more feasible for real estate professionals to manage their listings in a number of systems and have those changes syndicated. This may mean that an agent enters and manages a listing in the MLS and has it syndicated to the broker back-office system, other systems they use, and web sites – much as it is today – but it could also mean that the agent can manage listings directly into the broker system and have syndicated to the MLS and other systems. Managing that syndication may become a core function of the MLS and other real estate software. This scenario is illustrated below:
While it is clearly up to brokers to determine where their listings are advertised, as an industry it is in our best interest to encourage balancing the benefits of content distribution with the interests of those that have worked to create the content as well as providing appropriate levels of information security and consumer privacy.
While some MLSs have started dealing with their information security responsibilities, in terms of MLS system authentication and the hacking threat, less attention has been paid to listing distribution. Some say, "This is information already out there on the Internet – its 'public' information. We don't publish the consumer's name or phone number. So what's the big deal?" If a consumer provides information to an agent for the purpose of selling their home and, due to uncontrolled distribution or inadequate information security practices, the consumer is immediately overrun with telephone, mail or email marketing from real estate related services it could lead to backlash and damage the trust in the real estate professional. It's all too easy to scrape the content off of most MLS web sites, and combining that information in a "mash up" with even the most basic reverse telephone directory creates a consumer privacy issue. If industry critics like Dave Barry have their way and open up access to the MLS, we will surely have other attorneys attacking the industry for that breach of consumer privacy.
As the scope of content syndication continues to expand it will be important for MLSs, brokers and others that may distribute content to implement next generation data distribution policies – addressing the security of everything from data exports created directly from the MLS to RETS feeds and other content distribution mechanisms. Such policies must:
- establish common practices used to evaluate and establish third party relationships
- establish conditions on those relationships and responsibilities within them
- determine the data that may be accessed
- describe how that data may be securely transmitted and stored
- enumerate numerous other detailed steps needed to provide appropriate information security for the content to which third parties, are entrusted.
While providing information security assessments to MLSs and brokers, Clareity has found that such policies are rarely thoroughly defined or implemented. Clareity has worked with a number of clients to adopt and implement more robust listing distribution policies, integrate these policies into appropriate contracts, educate staff and members and third parties on those policies, and implement pro-active controls as well as means for monitoring and enforcement. There are hundreds of details to attend to in such a policy, and it is rare that Clareity finds a policy that is better than 'fair' during an assessment. Ask yourself, "Does my policy cover secure coding practices to ensure listings can't be scraped off member or MLS/IDX vendor web sites? For the secure transfer of information using encrypted protocols? For the encrypted storage of information, in databases and on backups? For security compliance monitoring mechanisms?" Again, there are scores of detailed questions to be asked, and which need be addressed in a comprehensive policy.
The current trend toward increasing listing content syndication is going to create new roles for the MLS and new challenges for our industry. Finding a balance of giving the consumers access to the information they desire and protecting broker rights, industry interests and consumer privacy will be very important, and Clareity encourages its clients to take security of data distribution to the next level through policy, agreements, MLS rules, education, implementation, monitoring, and enforcement so they are prepared for the future of listing content syndication.
About the author:
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Matt Cohen is Clareity Consulting's Chief Technologist. Matt has spoken at many conferences, workshops and leadership retreats around the country on a wide variety of MLS-related topics, and is a well-regarded real estate industry expert on software design, product management, project management, data center reliability, scalability, and information security. Clareity Consulting was founded in 1996 to provide information technology consulting to the real estate industry and its related businesses. For more information, visit www.callclareity.com
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Apr. 19, 2007
The following is a high-level overview of a session from Clareity Consulting’s 2007 MLS Executive Workshop. Every year the Clareity’s Workshop provides fresh, in-depth updates on the most pressing issues facing MLS executives and leaders and creates an intimate environment for participants to share their knowledge and experience with each other. You can check the dates and/or register for next year’s event on the Clareity Consulting web site.
Accurate listing content is one of the greatest strengths of the Multiple Listing Service, and is one of the greatest barriers to entry for outside companies that think replacing local MLS organizations is easy. Even MLS subscribers don’t always understand the entire value of the MLS –- in one recent survey Clareity performed for a regional MLS, an agent asked, “Why am I paying so much for MLS when the consumer gets it for free from Realtor.com and other web sites?” Our answer to that question is that the data has to come from somewhere, and if it’s not accurate, it has nowhere near the value to the real estate professional -- or to the consumer -- when it is posted on an advertising web site. Maintaining listing accuracy is a constant battle for MLS staff, but thankfully there are new tools that can be added to the traditional arsenal, making MLS staff more efficient while improving the accuracy of the database and the value of the asset.
There are several ways to approach data compliance –- some old and some new -- each with different capabilities, advantages and disadvantages:
1. MLS Listing Maintenance Business Rules
This is the best place to enforce many areas of data quality. Unfortunately thorough controls are rare -– sometimes Clareity even finds MLSs that don’t even ensure a valid link between state, county, city, zip code and school district, let alone some of the more complicated checks. Some MLSs have not explored adding additional checks at this level while others fear possible MLS vendor programming charges. Keep in mind that MLS subscribers are adept at finding ways around MLS system checks, and rule adjustments may take additional time and possibly money.
2. Manual Review by MLS Staff
Some of the checks performed by staff are the types that would be better enforced during listing maintenance, but it’s important to have staff review items that computers don’t yet have the capability to check –- especially the content of media such as photos, virtual tours, documents, and videos. But manual review is often not thorough or reliable; it is difficult to look through all new or changed listings in a timely way, before the listing is sent to Realtor.com or other sites. It can also be seen as unfair (“The MLS staff is picking on me.”). Still, there’s a place for manual review -– it’s just one part of a comprehensive compliance toolkit.
3. Community Reporting
If there is an easy way for MLS subscribers to anonymously report bad information when viewing a listing and if they are encouraged to do so, this method can save staff time during manual reviews and also keep the staff abreast of new tricks for dodging the methods already in place to catch issues. There are dozens of areas where community reporting is the best or only way to track bad information, including entry of inaccurate listing physical attributes, an unreported change in price or media issues as described above. Like the manual review, this method leads to the “picking on me” complaint -– but it’s still an important part of compliance checking.
Ideally, both staff manual review and community reporting all feed into an automated compliance system so that issues can be tracked and dealt with efficiently.
4. Automated Compliance System Testing
These systems are the latest and greatest addition to the MLS compliance toolkit, and less than 10% of MLSs utilize them to date. They improve compliance staff efficiency, are fast, reliable and impartial and can catch a wide variety of bad information, including but not limited to fair housing keyword violations, invalid address, incorrect area, re-listing (tricking DOM), agent and office mismatch, late submission, secretary as the listing agent, listing price (or other fields) that must not be zero, property address in remarks, agent contact information in remarks or other misuse of free-form text fields, duplicate listings by the same agent/broker/office, and late reporting of pending or final sale.
These automated compliance systems have hundreds of features that differentiate them, but at a high level, they do most of the same things –- allowing MLS staff to set rules, run automatic daily checks, accept manually caught violations, report violations and repeat offenses, take or allow manual courses of action (ignore, continue, hold for review, or mark corrected), send notifications, detect corrections, report repeat offenses per listing, agent or office, and create fine exports.
There are several approaches to automated compliance checking. Last year Solid Earth introduced “Citation Manager,” a tool built right into their MLS system. Other vendors will likely follow with built-in tools of their own. Clareity also knows of two regional MLSs that have chosen to build their own automated compliance system using staff resources. For most MLSs though, the short- to medium-term solution will likely involve licensing an add-on tool. At the present time, Clareity is aware of three market leading add-on tools:
- iMapp -– iCheck™
- PropertyInfo (Stewart Title) -- Listing Checker
- MarketLinx (First American) -– MLS Data Checker (MDC)
Clareity tracks the features of each of these systems extensively, and each has a number of advantages and disadvantages depending on the needs of the MLS. Unfortunately, the length allotted to this article precludes an in-depth review of each.
All of the products have opportunities for further evolution. The most desired additional feature, according to those who already use such systems, is fax notification of violations. We also will likely see additional deeper system integrations that enable new kinds of automated tests. Ideally all of these products will eventually evolve to include a complete compliance toolkit that goes beyond data compliance, covering IDX web site compliance testing, and use of search engine integration to look for listings and media outside of approved sites on the Internet.
Together, robust MLS listing maintenance business rules, manual thorough listing review by MLS staff, community reporting mechanisms, and automated compliance system testing comprise a toolkit that can help maintain the greatest strength of the MLS, accurate data. Clareity Consulting encourages its clients to use all of these methods to their fullest and explore the new options for automated compliance testing.
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