A new white paper released today from real estate industry group The Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) ahead of the June 5 government workshopon competition in real estate, argues that the industry does not need any government intervention to help get property listings data distributed widely to potential customers and others and says that the nature of multiple listing services (MLS) inherently breeds competition.
MLSs — there are currently 630 in the county according to data from real estate data firm T3 Sixty — are the longstanding organizations into which real estate agents share their clients’ property data, and which make that data available for display by brokerages, home search websites, and other places (they originally started in the late 1800s as word-of-mouth and paper ledgers). The CMLS white paper says that they are a rare instance in the business world were cooperation boosts competition.
“Real estate brokers who participate in MLS agree to provide their listing information to the MLS in exchange for the ability to see other participants’ listings,” the report says.
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