Conflict over the letters MLS amongst Realtors and NAR

Recently a new rule has been established within the National Association of Realtors Standard of Practice regarding advertising and representation to the public when it comes to domain names used. It states:

# Standard of Practice 12-10

REALTORS®’ obligation to present a true picture in their advertising and representations to the public includes the URLs and domain names they use, and prohibits REALTORS® from:

1. engaging in deceptive or unauthorized framing of real estate brokerage websites;

2. manipulating (e.g., presenting content developed by others) listing content in any way that produces a deceptive or misleading result; or

3. deceptively using metatags, keywords or other devices/methods to direct, drive, or divert Internet traffic, or to otherwise mislead consumers. (Adopted 1/07)

In most recent events there have been some ethics complaints filed with local Associations of Realtors across the country on Realtors who have websites that contain the letters MLS in the URL; for example, www.citynameMLS.com. A friend, colleague and competitor of mine has been the target of one of these complaints and I’m interested to hear both Realtors thoughts and consumers thoughts on this. As a Realtor who supports fair trade, I personally disagree with the notion of taking down a site merely because it contained the letters MLS in the URL. There are Realtors out there including myself who have invested not only years worth of time building and promoting our sites, but thousands of dollars as well so that the public could have a choice. I feel that these ethics complaints only hurt Realtors in general as this could push to the forefront those sites that are not Realtor owned which contain the letters MLS in their URL or who advertise the MLS and are able to get around the ruling by NAR since they do not belong to the National Association of Realtors. I became a “Realtor” as opposed to just being a real estate agent because I feel strongly about ethics. It would be an injustice to consumers to take sites down merely because they have the letters MLS in their site especially if the website clearly contained all of the disclaimers that it needs to; ie., displaying the brokerage name and contact information, the Realtors name, license number and contact information, and that the site was not an official site of the MLS but merely a site that uses the data from the MLS which each participating brokerage has agreed to to get listings out to world. This is called broker reciprocity by way of IDX (Internet Data Exchange) and only the listings from brokers who have agreed to participate are displayed. According to the Middle Tennessee Regional MLS 99.5% of all MLS listings are included in the IDX listings. That’s nearly every MLS listing available which means that most brokers WANT their listings on as many sites as they can get them on because this only helps in advertising for their clients, the sellers. If you were/are a Seller, wouldn’t you want your home listed everywhere it could be to gain maximum exposure?

I have found that the majority of consumers looking for real estate realize that most websites are operated by Realtors and quite frankly they find it refreshing to be able to obtain the information they are looking for because our sites are so user friendly and information rich not only to the degree of listings but also about the communities we serve. The official MLS site does serve the consumer well when it comes to displaying listings, but try to find a tip about a great restaurant to go to or learn about events going on in the area, there are none. What if you are unsure about what a particular city or suburb has to offer? You can’t find that on the MLS site either. You would have to leave that site and go to a site such as ours. So why not just get everything you need from one site?

This isn’t about consumer complaints because to my knowledge there are none. In my humble opinion, I believe this is about other Realtors out there trying to take unfair advantage of a ruling to better serve their own personal interests. Would I like to see my site at the number one position for all relevant search terms about Nashville real estate and become the greatest real estate agent in the world? Absolutely… but not by doing it unfairly. If you are good at what you do and your website is relevant, you won’t have to use deceptive tactics to gain a better position. May the best sites win, whatever they’re called.