3 ms·

What's an MLS?

by bellerocky 12y ago

What's an MLS?

tptacek 12y ago
Multiple Listing Services, run by real estate agents, which can't die soon enough.
- spacehome 12y ago
  Good riddance.
uptown 12y ago
It stands for Multiple Listing Service. Essentially, it's the database used to manage listing information about a property which has been entered by the realtor handling the sale of a property. In the "old days" you could really only find out about properties for sale by looking in the newspapers, or speaking with a realtor who could search for-sale properties in these databases. There are thousands of them in the United States, and you generally need to have a realtor's license to gain access to your local MLS. MLS's can choose to syndicate their data to third-parties using services like ListHub or Point2 - but usually stipulate that the data must always point back to the listing agent so they stay part of the selling process. Companies like Zillow and Trulia have challenged this model. Increasingly, they've become the de-facto starting-point for real estate research. They've built more-user-friendly interfaces, and surfaced public-records information along with property listings in order to present a more-compelling way to buy and sell houses. Furthermore, they've done this while positioning themselves as advertising companies so as not to upset realtors or make them feel as-if they're being cut out of the process. The big complaint realtors have had with Zillow and Trulia usually centers around two concepts. One is "stale" data. The typical claim is that once data is syndicated from an MLS through a syndicator like ListHub to a site like Zillow things may have changed on-the-ground and the data may be stale. Another complaint is that Zillow's business model is built on the backs of the work realtors have done. They source all the information, and Zillow earns money from redistributing that data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service

What's an MLS?

tptacek 12y ago

Multiple Listing Services, run by real estate agents, which can't die soon enough.

spacehome 12y ago
Good riddance.

uptown 12y ago

It stands for Multiple Listing Service. Essentially, it's the database used to manage listing information about a property which has been entered by the realtor handling the sale of a property. In the "old days" you could really only find out about properties for sale by looking in the newspapers, or speaking with a realtor who could search for-sale properties in these databases. There are thousands of them in the United States, and you generally need to have a realtor's license to gain access to your local MLS. MLS's can choose to syndicate their data to third-parties using services like ListHub or Point2 - but usually stipulate that the data must always point back to the listing agent so they stay part of the selling process. Companies like Zillow and Trulia have challenged this model. Increasingly, they've become the de-facto starting-point for real estate research. They've built more-user-friendly interfaces, and surfaced public-records information along with property listings in order to present a more-compelling way to buy and sell houses. Furthermore, they've done this while positioning themselves as advertising companies so as not to upset realtors or make them feel as-if they're being cut out of the process. The big complaint realtors have had with Zillow and Trulia usually centers around two concepts. One is "stale" data. The typical claim is that once data is syndicated from an MLS through a syndicator like ListHub to a site like Zillow things may have changed on-the-ground and the data may be stale. Another complaint is that Zillow's business model is built on the backs of the work realtors have done. They source all the information, and Zillow earns money from redistributing that data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service