On a national level I and others I have spoken with sense that similar problems will occur affecting thousands of real estate agents. This will be directly related to those local Broker controlled MLS's who find a need to invent additional IDD rules and regulations to control the agent client Internet contact. I have spoken with agents in a number of cities who are shopping new agencies to work at based on the broker position related to the leads issue. One agent share with me the fact that his "old" broker who also a selling broker would not allow the firms agents who had their own websites to have any client email links come directly to them off the IDD presentation. The broker simple kept the good ones and increased his revenue stream by selling the rest to the agents who wanted them as referrals at 35%. The affected agent(s) shopped another agency where the broker allowed those leads coming in via the agents website to be sent directly to them. In reality IDD will act to highlight the distinct differences between the different real estate models. It will increase agent awareness of the Broker Centric agencies who see the increasing potential to incorporate the firms agents as a potential profit source via add on fees for Internet support, company websites, email addresses, etc. Now they have handed to them a major income source the ability to farm all the email leads coming to their agents via IDD. This is a no brainer on the broker part we'll simple have the emails direct away from the agent so we can refer them back for a fee. On the other hand you have the Agent Centric operations such as REMAX. Realty Executives, Keller Williams, ect who have impowered their associates to be at the center of the process and want their associates to directly benefit from their individual marketing. Here the agents can have with the brokers permission the leads coming directly to them. This difference I suggest may be the biggest recruitment marketing tool the Agent Centric firms will ever have in recruiting top agents who are Internet driven away from the Broker Centric competition. As for the MLS's who are Broker Centric controlled it has been suggest by other agents in some cases their local MLS's restrictions may have gone too far in tilting the playing field to benefit the Broker Centric firms. If this is the case then it may require legal action by the National Agent Centric firms to ensure that the decisions have not involved a contraint of trade and the playing field is level. In general by closing I would suggest that (1)The MLS's may be feeling their time is passing since the genie is out of the bottle and it's going to be darn hard to put the cap back on. and (2)There will be further issues for Broker Centric firms related to the issue of client contacts and the selling back to the agents referrals they brought in via their web sites.

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