I attended the NAR convention in San Diego over the weekend and this banner caught my eye. It just seemed oddly Orwellian to me, as if NAR were subliminally planting the idea. As it turns out, that was not far from the truth.
The IDX rules have been updated to explicitly allow indexing by search engines, defeating the Indianapolis BoR’s attempt to use the old rules to prevent brokers and agents from using IDX data in SEO.
This time around, apparently, there was no parliamentary chicanery to delay the obvious. On the other hand, they did add an explicit opt-out for sellers who don’t want AVMs or third-party comments, or links to that content, associated with their listings.
It would be funny if it weren’t so frustrating: Obviously, they are aware that there is this technology called a “search engine” that makes it easy to find stuff, because they just endorsed a rule that acknowledges what the rest of the world figured out in 1995 — that search engines are useful.
Then they pivot and give sellers the right to censor information about their listings, but only on sites that use IDX data, meaning that those AVMs and third party comments are just a quick search away on sites like Zillow and Trulia. All this does is give people a reason to leave the broker or agent’s site to go and find the information they want on a site that is not bound by these idiotic rules.
Not that it will matter for much longer. With RPR, NAR itself is getting into the AVM game and, if you believe the nightmares of some local MLS directors, taking a concrete step towards a national MLS. If the reality matches the spin, they may be able to improve AVMs by adding information contributed by the membership, an idea they call the “Realtor Valuation Model”.
What’s missing is MLS data, at least for now. Done right, blending current and historical MLS data in with all the public data and combining that with an ability for brokers and agents to add their 2 cents would produce a much more accurate, and consistent, picture of real estate value, which means that MLSs have a choice to make: Play ball or don’t.
I’m fully aware of Greg’s opinion of NAR and its origins as a “criminal conspiracy against consumers” and he has a point, but if NAR has decided to hobble the ability of local MLSs to use their rule-making authority to fend off technology that they fear, then that is a good thing . As it stands, the end result of the current MLS system is the balkanization of real estate data and all these internecine squabbles like the MIBOR thing that do nothing to help brokers, agents, sellers or buyers.
Maybe, just maybe, the NAR has come to the conclusion that the MLSs, like the Sunnis in Anbar, need to make a choice — either you are with us or you are a terrorist. If you are with us, there will be benefits, if you are against us, not so much.
As Brian Boero points out, there are so many layers to this that, if it were an onion, it would be the size of Rush Limbaugh’s head, but one thing was obvious this weekend in San Diego and it was the extra padding that some of the MLS people had in their pants from the diaper they had to wear to prevent their loosened bowels from embarrassing them at the Reba concert.
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