Has the industry given consumers too much MLS access?

Broker Al Napier says it has. He's tired of serving lookie-loos who want to use his virtual office Website (VOW) MLS access, but not him. They want free access to the MLS listings, and it doesn't matter to them whether they already have an agent, or don't intend to use an agent. Free is free, isn't it?

Free is the problem, says Napier. Providing MLS access isn't free to him. It comes from his MLS, he says, in a raw data download that he has to pay someone else to put together, and then operate on his site.

And this he says is ironic, because his MLS operates a public Website that he says competes directly with his own. The MLS site gives consumers free access to the MLS, yet he has to pay for an MLS download to give to his own consumers.

While the political issues bother him, what concerns him immediately is that operating a VOW isn't the lead generator he thought it would be.

"About a month ago I went into the back-end of my VOW on a Saturday afternoon and had seen that so far that day 79 people had viewed local listings via my VOW," explains Napier, "yet not one of then had contacted me for a showing appointment. By the time the weekend was out, over 100 people had used the VOW, and quite a few had forwarded the info to 'friends.' Some that following week had removed themselves from my VOW citing that they found a house."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was happening, says Napier. The MLS and brokers are making it too easy to access the listings.

"I've been running a little experiment since then," says Napier. "I used to run a simple classified ad offering free access to all listings if they would go to my site and sign up and I usually have between 400-500 people in my VOW at any given time. Since then, I stopped that ad and instead offered a free recording via my 1-800 hotline service in place of my URL in the same classified ad in the same publication. The recording describes the service and asks them to leave a message so that we may contact them directly to get them signed up into the listings service. Obviously, I want them to sign a BA agreement and make an appointment here in the office though it doesn't say it in those exact words."

What Napier has found is that instead of having a dozen or so people each week signing up for the VOW online, he would get only one or two messages on the 1-800 hotline, but out of those, 75 percent of the people have met him in his office and the majority have signed buyer representation agreements.

"Only in my wildest dreams would stats like this happen strictly via my VOW setup," marvels Napier, who says his BA agreement success ratio is in the fractions of one percent.

While there is huge room for higher "closing" ratios, Napier doesn't believe his percentages will get better through his VOW. The reason? Too many brokers are offering VOWs, and they aren't working them or policing them.

"I have taken heat from consumers," says Napier, "for policing my own VOW. You can find out that a customer has not been truthful that they aren't working with another agent. They will click through to see the listings and use them and ignore the broker. That's the first clue. Others are looking for homes every day, and they don't contact you, and then when you start investigating and call them up, and they don't want to talk to you, you figure it out after a while. If you shut them off, they get mad. 'This is free, and I have no right to shut them off,' they say. They also say, 'we can see this info everywhere.' That is the perception that is out there -- that it is free for the taking."

VOWs aren't being policed by other brokers. He says he has been receiving Prudential updates for two years yet no agent has ever called him to confirm his identity. Neither has any other VOW operator in the area, including a well-known e-broker known for prodding the industry into releasing MLS listings to the public.

"They've never tried to find out who I am or if I am for real either," says Napier.

Napier says he used false names but legitimate e-mails to sign up for the VOWs to simply find out if his competition is actually working the leads. He would happily 'fess up to who he is, but so far he hasn't had to.

The implications are obvious. User agreements are worthless, and so is the security that brokers were promised with regard to their listings.

"If I notice that someone signs up in my VOW for every area of town, I know something is wrong," says Napier, who is now on the lookout for data miners.

But if other brokers aren't checking their VOWs, he can't protect the industry alone.

That's why he thinks he has to send a message to other brokers -- by opting out of VOWs.

"The public has become a pain in the ass with this stuff," says Napier. "I am going to write other heads of companies and tell them why I'm opting out. It's not personal."

But before doing that, he plans to talk to an attorney. He says he doesn't want to be sued by some other member who may view his voluntary opt-out as anti-competitive.

And that's what's wrong with this industry. Anyone can sue you or sic the FTC and DOJ on you for simply trying to protect yourself.

Published: November 12, 2003

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