Many agents are cheering the National Association of REALTORS® for its Internet Data Display policy which insists that MLS organizations allow individual Realtor members the ability to access listings databases for downloading and posting on their personal Web sites. The cheering may stop when agents realize just how expensive being their own Realtor.com really is.

Listings are the dearest commodity on the Internet because they are the number one objective of online buyers, who are estimated to be four out of ten homebuyers and rapidly growing. Buyers want to see photos and property information, and do preliminary research before they talk to a Realtor according to studies. Some brokers want to keep the listings available at the local level for that reason.

Several years ago, as a means of keeping listings local and out of the databases of national listings aggregators, some brokers in the Northwest cooperated in an initiative called Broker Reciprocity in which they agreed to give each other access to their listings via their MLS cooperative. This gave Internet marketing opportunities to large and small brokers alike. The NAR's Internet Data Display Policy adopted the principles behind Broker Reciprocity to put individual Realtors on an equal playing field using the Internet.

Until the NAR's Broker Reciprocity push, only listings aggregators such as Realtor.com, HomeAdvisor, and HomeSeekers, among others, were allowed to pay for access to the listings and display them. Individual brokers and agents could only post their own listings on their personal Web sites, a situation that seemed terribly unfair to many Realtors. In order to reach consumers using the Internet who are primarily interested in listings, they were forced to buy expensive Web sites or pages and lead generation tools from the same listings aggregators who were "advertising" their listings for free.

But if Realtors think the situation has been corrected to be more fair, they may be in for a surprise.

Many MLS organizations, such as the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, Inc. (NTREIS,) an MLS organization serving a cooperative of 18 Dallas/Fort Worth area Realtor organizations, immediately complied with the NAR initiative and opened their databases to any agents who want access. So far, there is no additional fee for this service, but MLS organizations are looking at offering Broker Reciprocity public listings as a new service model that can be offered to members. While MLS organizations toy with vendors and pricing the service model, Realtors who want the database of listings meanwhile are paying high prices to get such a marketing advantage.

If you are an agent anxious to post your MLS listings database on your site there are a few things you should know, courtesy of the groundwork performed by two Dallas-area agents Tom Rhodes and Sharon Marsh who have already done it. What you need to know is that:

1. You can't post the data as is. It has to be reformatted for public display.
2. Adding a large listings database will impact your Internet Service Provider, which will charge you more for the services you've been getting.

Data Display

While the listings aggregators have the personnel and technology to reformat the listings for public consumption, individual agents do not, and that's where one of high costs of having cooperative listings comes in. Either agents have to do the formatting themselves, or hire Webmasters and pay them for their time and database management. This doesn't come cheaply - Rhodes' Web consultant, David Allison, estimates that putting a reformatted consumer-friendly MLS database on Rhodes personal Web site which is compliant with MLS regulations has cost the agent approximately $5,000 in programming and other fees.

According to NTREIS regulations, explains Allison, agents who wish to access the listings database and post listings must agree to the following rules, among others:

• Listings may display no more information than is on the NTREIS customer report.
• You have to give credit to the listing agent, broker and company for the listing.
• You have to refresh the data once a week to show it is current.
• You can not give your MLS pass-code to third parties or allow third parties to download data without prior NTREIS authorization.
• Listings can not combine NTREIS data with non-NTREIS data.

Your MLS may arrive at similar regulations when it adopts the NAR Internet Data Display Policy and decides how it will incorporate Broker Reciprocity into its services and revenue model.

Storage and bandwidth

Marsh, a former systems analyst, is upgrading her equipment and doing the programming work herself, but she says that despite saving money on labor, the additional storage space and bandwidth required by adding such a large database to her site is driving up her costs. "My Web site now can run on 20 MEGs of storage, but when I add these listings, I will need between 200 and 400 MEGs," says Marsh.

Why is storage and bandwidth an issue? When you create a Web site for personal use, it has a limited amount of storage space, usually about 20 MEGs, and a limited amount of bandwidth, about 10 MEGs, explains Marsh. When you add a listings database, you are adding significant data that needs to be stored. In order to access the data, your Internet service provider (ISP) has to supply bandwidth or access so that your database can be searched by consumers.

Think about the end user, the consumer. When a consumer keys in that s/he wants a three-bedroom home for $200,000, the Web site initiates a search. A listings database such as NTREIS's has about 30,000 records on it, the equivalent of about 10 agent Web sites or more, which requires more power from the ISP's server(s.) "When you search for a record, that page does not exist, so the Web site has to find the information that matches the description and create a page to put it on. That's what causes the bandwidth intensity. It's using a lot more power." "That is the files transfering back and forth when the pages are created," she continues. "That is how they (ISPs) regulate how much traffic is on your site. If you are getting six megabytes of traffic every month, and the server you are sharing with 800 other Web sites is getting one MEG of traffic a month apiece, then you are slowing down their Web sites." No ISP will let that happen.

Counsels Marsh, "Listings require a lot of storage and the ISP will want you to have your own server because it will slow down everyone else's Web site that they host."

Server space can get expensive. Your ISP is providing you storage and bandwidth in a package, usually at a cost of about $19.95 per month for 20 MEGS of space and one MEG of bandwidth. Imagine how much your ISP will charge when you add a searchable database of listings. "You tell your ISP that you need 400 MEGS of storage and 10 MEGS of bandwidth, you are looking at costs of approximately $150 to $250 a month," estimates Marsh. "Your ISP costs have just gone from $240 a year to $3,000 per year."

So why is it worth it? Market advantage. You can attract and keep consumers on your Web site because you have the information that consumers want.

But many agents do not have the cash or the training of Rhodes and Marsh. They may be new to the business, or over-committed to other media, or simply not having the best year of their careers. What are they going to do? Will listings be the new Great Divide between agents?

Find out tomorrow in Part II - Realtor.com To The Rescue

Published: September 25, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.