This month, Metrolist, Inc, a multiple listing service serving the greater Denver-metro area, says it made history by being one of the first MLSs in the nation to offer "shared" listing data from two other MLSs in Boulder and Colorado Springs.

By signing "Data Exchange Licensing Agreements" Metrolist, Inc., Information Real Estate Services (IRES), and the Pikes Peak Association of REALTORS® (PPAR) were able to provide cooperation between the front-range MLSs, known to the rest of us flatlanders as the MLSs that are on the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains.

The three MLSs haven't merged but they have created the Colorado Cooperative MLS -- strictly for the sharing of listings and compensation. Could this be the start of something new?

Sharing listings between MLSs sounds easy enough, but it took the three MLSs some work to get the process in place, according to Gwen Lyons, Metrolist customer relations director.

"The possibility was always there," says Lyons. "In other areas, they have aggregated the data into a centralized place. We are sharing listings a different way where we have their listings on our database and they have ours on their database, and we transfer the data once a day."

The process employs the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS), an open standard for accessing and exchanging real estate transaction information initiated by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and various service providers in 1999.

"Obviously there were technical challenges based on data mapping, the ways we capture the data, geographic differences, and references," Lyons explains. "We worked it out with reference documents to come up with a consistent format."

The MLSs also took the process through their legal departments. "Sharing compensation and cooperation -- that was more of a challenge," says Lyons.

What were the issues? "Making sure everyone was comfortable with the legal language," replies Lyons, "agreeing on what fields we were going to share."

For example, the cooperative has agreed to share only 54 fields of information. Metrolist publishes over 200 fields. A task force of leadership and technical teams worked the solutions out.

"This is the first time shared listings have ever been transferred between MLSs instead of aggregated into a single database," says Lyons proudly.

While this is a big step, other cooperation is still at the crawling stage. "This is not for public view," says Lyons. "Only licensed professionals have access, and they all abide by same rules as their home MLS. These listings won't be available through IDX. That was part of the agreement not to make it available to IDX engines. The reason is copyright issues. We don't own the copyright for Pike's Peak or IRES, so we can't transfer data we don‘t have ownership of."

What is the advantage of cooperation over merging?

"The front range has grown so much we had a lot of Realtors on the boundaries who belong to several MLSs to do business," explains Lyons, "so they can choose a home MLS without belonging to all of them and still have access to listings. It insures cooperation between the two entities. So if a Denver agent sold a Colorado Springs home, they know they would be compensated."