How to Sue your MLS for services?

[langard]

The federal government originally passed the legislation for forming MLSs with consumers in mind, not real estate brokers. The whole idea was to give buyers and sellers more and better information about ALL the properties available in an area instead of the select few represented by a particular agent or franchise.

But the first MLSs formed around the country did nothing of the kind. Brokers instantly began to withhold listings and manupulate information availability to suit their own purpose. Hard copy monthly MLS publications were mostly filled with outdated properties, useless information, numbers and jargon that only a real estate agent could understand (or even care about). The entire concept became relegated to pushing referrals and collecting fees for membership.

The Internet changed all that. The huge volume of information that is now freely available on the Web to consumers is making MLSs obsolete in a hurry. Buyers and sellers couldn't care less if you belong to an MLS nowadays. They can research taxes and run comps themselves live online from sites like Zillow.com and others. Brokers can no longer pretend that competitor's properties and FSBOs don't exist nor can they restrict the information availability for real estate they represent themselves.

Little MLSs that don't or won't understand that will not exist in five years. Larger ones that can adapt and change their whole method and concept will probably survive if they can provide a genuinely valuable service to their membership and the public. The NAR has been trying in vain for the last few years to inspire some standards in little MLSs - or at the very least get them to participate in the larger IDX scheme.

I suppose my point is that you can probably expect no cooperation at all from most smaller MLSs. Most are deserately clinging to their monthly fee collections and cannot make the hyperleap into the present technology. That some brokers still require their agents to join such organizations is ridiculous. But the industry is changing very fast and the Web is the instigator. It's not the big that eat the small anymore, it's the fast that eat the slow.

[Iamanoak]

I whole heartedly agree. I also belong to the Calaveras County MLS as well. Boy, Talk about an archaic program. Very limited, the query page sucks. You name it, it blows. I have also found that the agents in that area are very "old school". They are the types that when you call on a listed property, they will not give out any details. They sort of force you into letting them show it to you. And yes, some even carry pagers.

In my opinion, times have changed. We live in the information age. just read all the statistics on how many buyers now go to tthe internet to shop for homes. I have had so many buyers come to me to represent them with the lists of homes they want to see, all off of Realtor.com.

What a contrast between them. Our MLS hear just finished with a major lock box upgrade campaign. They are trying to encourage all of us to go to smartphones. I am still undecided. They seem a little bulky to me. I like my small phone and palm pilot separtate.