http://properties.usa-bound.com

We are hoping to sell property and mortgages to British residents.

All advice appreciated.

thanks,

Richard

How is your home search going to work?

__________________
Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.

It's still a bit basic for now as we don't have many properties in the database. soon we will have MLS access, however.

Richard

I guess I was wondering which mls databases you will be using if you are going to try and incorporate a national search for homes.

__________________
Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.

Hmm, I thought the MLS was all regional? So if you want to do national searches you have to be a member of lots of them...?

I don't know much about it and would be grateful for your expertise.

All I know for sure is that the person for whom I am working will soon have MLS access in some small part of Florida.

Richard

Well, here I am definately no expert, but, just in Atlanta alone there are 2 databases. I would say that to have a national search, you would need hundreds. I would start to look into this immediately and before doing any more work on that website until you figure out how to supply the home search - that is the backbone of your website and the reason people will use it.

__________________
Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.

thanks for the reply.

it's frustrating that MLS is a closed system. However, ventures such as

http://www.openmls.org/

don't seem to be doing very well.

Any ideas why...?

Richard

I think that it is because you are dealing with intellectual property rights, safety concerns and numerous other things that make the industry not want to make some changes. Not to mention that the undertaking itself could be very overwhelming. Changes will be made. They will just happen more slowly than some would like. It's probably best to go slow from where it currently is.

__________________
Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.

Where are the IP issues with advertising property...?

I accept that buying a house will never be as easy as buying a used car simply because the sums of money are so much larger. But even so, by opening up the MLS things could be much easier and cheaper for buyers and sellers.

I have (some) database expertise and could come up with a rival to openmls.org. What do you think I would need to do in order to get realtors to advertise on it?

If a property is listed on the MLS then there's nothing to stop a realtor from listing it in another database, right...?

Anyone else want to add anything?

Thanks,

Richard

O.K. Let me get on my soapbox!

The IP issue is in the way things are advertised and the relationships between sellers and brokers.

As for the open MLS, think about this:

Law #1 in Real Estate:

Real Estate is Local

For me personally, I see absolutely no benefit in advertising homes for sale in any area that I do not sell real estate.

The reality is, and this is hard for the open MLS folks to swallow, is that I currently can view all homes for sale in any area of the United States.


In fact, the current system might be better because of Law #1 in Real Estate.

Please don't misunderstand what I am saying here. As I too, on some level, feel like everything would be neat and clean. However, that is based more in idealism than reality.

This is important - Large companies will be the benefactor of an open MLS system, not the consumer. Costs always get past on to the consumer.

The most accurate analogy I can think of is a tax on business. There is no such thing as a tax on business. Tax on business is actually a tax on consumers because businesses pass the expense on to the consumer who oay the tax for the business.

Let's just say a company (let's just pick one,Trulia) gets its hands wrapped around a truly open MLS. What do you think they would do with it.

I don't want to ever advertise in 5,000 versions of some open MLS any more than I want one company to control the whole thing. I just don't think the benefits outway the costs.

__________________
Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.