The REALTOR organization represents the vast majority of real estate licensees in the country. They also own or have partnership interests in about 90% of the MLS systems in the country. The DOJ (Department of Justice) brought a lawsuit in 2006 against the REALTOR organization for acting as a "cartel" in attempting to limit access to listing information to "Virtual Office" brokers. The suspicion was that the heavy discounting of commissions and fees were becoming issues with more conventional commission brokers - denied of course by the REALTOR organization.
The particular issues involved specific Boards of REALTORS and MLS affiliates were attempted to be resolved by re-writing the By-Laws to change their errant ways. The REALTOR organization is now attempting to have the lawsuit dismissed because, since the inception of the new By-Laws, "there is no longer an issue." They would have us believe they found religion.
My own experience for the past 20 years has been that the REALTOR organization is not quick to adopt technology that's particularly useful to the public they claim to serve. Their first attempts at an online venture was a fiasco. They were also prone to using proprietary technology that no one else could work with. They also lost a ton of money in the process.
Their control of MLS services either directly or indirectly has kept the costs relatively high, and they can get away with it because they control the inventory. They also have been VERY tight with information dissemination, often claiming privacy and protection rights. There still are way too many listings on the MLS services that have no address, so you need to call the local "uptime agent" to get any info and listen to the monotonous series of questions before they tell you something like: "well the seller asked us not to divulge that information over the phone, but I'd be glad to show it to you tonight or tomorrow night, which would be better?"
The internet revolution and the advent of Zillow, Trulia and others blew the cover off that one. And, as it has been in the past REALTORS appear to be trying to "catch up" with the rest of the world.
It's very sad. They could have been and should have been the online technology leaders 15 years ago, but they dragged their feet and now they have a good chance of losing the data store wars. Ask your local agent how much it costs them to belong to the MLS system. Then, see what it costs to place the same information on Yahoo, Zillow, or any of the other vendors out there that are racing to fill the gap.
What they don't understand is that a database is not going to replace the "street smarts" and anecdotal data competent agents carry with them in their heads. The key word here is COMPETENT. With a washout rate of nearly 80% the "agent population" has a ways to go to convince me that most of them are competent with investments of others worth several hundred thousands. That however is the subject of another post.
Tell us what you think. Is the REALTOR org a cartel? Do you think their control of MLS services limits your access to information? How do you agents feel about it?
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