Another gate is opening, or crumbling, depending on your point of view, and the funny thing is - the lock's already been off for a while. The real estate industry's proprietary hold on the home selling market via the Muliple Listing Service is being hastened by its own ranks. Since Realtor.com made comprehensive national MLS searches possible available to anyone, many Realtors believe consumers should have free access to listing information at the local level.

This week, a Beverly, Massachusetts Realtor, Jay Burnham, CRB, CRS, GRI became the first North Shore Realtor to provide direct access for the consumer to the Realtor Multiple Listing Service from his site, opening a floodgate of protest from fellow Realtors. However, all Burnham did was link to Realtor.com which has been providing MLS listings since 1996.

How did he do it? Burnham says he makes a daily practice of reading Agent News and perusing one of the site's most popular features, Site of the Day. He found another agent had MLS listings on his site and gave the innovative agent an e-mail asking how he obtained the listings. "He was no help, telling me that the information is "proprietary," but I was able to figure it out on my own, and I want to share what I found out with others," says Burnham. "We have to help each other."

"Home buyers can go to Realtor.com and search for homes in their area. All I have done is provide a link to the local MLS from Realtor.com, which any agent could get on their own, it they wanted to. The average consumer couldn't do it, but they could if they worked their way back from national, to state, to local MLS, and then do a search. All I have done is eliminate a few steps," he says.

Realtor.com receives its information on listings from local MLS companies, such as the largest MLS in Massachusetts, The Property Information Network, whose VP Kathryn Moore, called Burnham to complain. "She told me that the MLS was bombarded by calls from angry Realtors. While I was talking to her, she looked at my site and decided that I wasn't doing anything wrong. All I did was provide local access to information that was already public through Realtor.com."

Many Realtors are outraged by Burnham's action. He is baffled by their protests, explaining, "They think I am giving away trade secrets. They don't understand that the consumers can already do this on their own. Why wouldn't we want anybody to have this information? Aren't we trying to sell houses?"

"This kind of access has previously been restricted by the real estate industry in an attempt to have more control over the market," says Burnham, "but the demise of limited and proprietary access to information in the industry has been long overdue. Fortunately, the expansion of the Internet has forced Realtors to free up the information sought by the consumer and deliver it to them in a friendly format and without restrictions"

Nicknamed the "Internet Realtor," Burnham is capitalizing on momentum begun only a year ago when he decided that the Web market climate was right for him to make an impact. He recognized the global trend toward Internet marketing and realized that he needed to remain in the forefront as a resource for real estate information. Burnham began building his own website with a few pages of company and personal promotion, but gradually the site has grown into North Shore’s most complete and comprehensive site for real estate information.

Currently, Burnham maintains more than 80 pages of content featuring real estate, mortgage, insurance and relocation information as well as news articles (from Agent News and Real Times) and editorial features for consumers, homes for sale and links to other useful sites including comprehensive town profiles. For added spice, he has included a contest to win (without obligation) Dinner For Two to a popular North Shore restaurant.

Burnham's attention to quality content has paid off. His site is one of the few North Shore sites to receive national recognition. The site has been featured as the Agent News Website of the Day and has received a Pure Gold rating from The Real Estate Library and an Excellent (4i’s) rating by the International Real Estate Digest.

A sixteen year veteran, Burnham holds professional designations held by less than 1% of Realtors worldwide. He has served as president of the Realtor Multiple Listing Service, president of the North Shore Association of Realtors, and has been honored as the Association’s Realtor of the Year and as DeWolfe’s Sales Associate of the Year. "I'm am a professional, making informed decisions based on the needs of the marketplace."

"People do not want to see only ads and personal promotion on a website. They want access to a variety of information and they want it immediately. It’s the content that brings people back to the site and makes them recommend it to others. Then, of course, you need to throw in a little fun - like our dinner contest," advises Burnham. "The site is like a living thing, constantly growing and changing to meet the needs of consumers seeking information about real estate."

Published: April 9, 1998

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