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Realtors give green light to statewide property listing service
| Wednesday, Apr 9 2008 5:34 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Apr 10 2008 7:18 AM
Bakersfield’s local real estate trade association has signed on to create a statewide Multiple Listing Service, a move that could bring major change to the way brokers and agents share information and market property.
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California has 70 separate Multiple Listing Services, fee-based subscription software databases where brokers post properties for sale. Bakersfield’s listing service, which includes some Kern County areas, is owned and operated by the Bakersfield Association of Realtors.
The state’s industry association, the California Association of Realtors, would run the planned system.
Proponents say a statewide service will keep agents and brokers relevant by arming them with more information through a single subscription. Critics worry the proposed database will make it easy for out-of-town brokers to muscle in on the local market.
“We have to get this information out and market the properties,” Bakersfield Association of Realtors President Warren Peterson said.
“To the average consumer who’s trying to sell his home, that person might feel it’s very important that as many people be able to see that home as possible,” he said.
The rethinking of how brokers will list properties in the future — along with vital details such as price and square footage — is partially driven by the proliferation of real estate Web sites such as Zillow.com and LendingTree.com. Some sites collect information from consumers who visit, then charge real estate agents for the sales leads, according to Bakersfield agent Jeanne Radsick.
“Realtors are frustrated because they feel like their information, their listings, are being used and abused and these companies are all trying to sell it back to you,” said Radsick, who has been appointed to the board of directors for the new service.
The California MLS won’t be available to the public, and won’t directly compete with those sites, but it might give real estate agents and brokers an edge in a competitive market, Radsick said.
“If we have the bulk of the information up and down the state, maybe that will put us into a position of showing value to the client,” she said.
And that will make it easier for agents and brokers to refer business to one another, Radsick said.
But Glenn Porter, a broker with Bakersfield’s RE/MAX Golden Empire, thinks the idea is “dangerous.”
“We have the potential of having outside brokers from around the state coming into Bakersfield and selling Bakersfield properties without knowing our market,” Porter said.
“Bakersfield is not Los Angeles or San Diego,” he said.
Consumers could suffer if a broker based elsewhere overprices, or underprices, a home, Porter said.
To list in various regions now, a broker would have to pay multiple subscription fees. The Bakersfield association charges a $1,000 start-up fee to brokers who aren’t association members, along with a $65 monthly charge.
But California Association of Realtors Vice President and General Counsel June Barlow doubts brokers will sell out of the geographic regions they know.
More than 61 of the state’s 117 local Realtors associations have already agreed to the plan, Barlow said.
She declined to say when the new MLS might be implemented, but said the schedule is aggressive, and that it will not take years.