Dean Landolt

For anyone who regularly reads this blog (hi Mom), you may notice I link to Techdirt pretty damn often, but lately I’ve been buried in work to really follow some of the posts. Luckily, I got just the break I needed to catch up on some blog reading during class tonight (thank you wifi!), and came across a post that stirred some pent up passion in me. I’ve been in or around real estate for as long as I can remember (not now, thank god), and this Techdirt post about the Department of Justice’s recent interest in MLS data and the National Association of Realtors…

“That fault rests with the government, which has put the NAR in charge of regulating its industry, and deciding who can and can’t be a broker.”

While that may be a common perception, that actually couldn’t be further from the truth. I used to have my real estate license in the state of Maryland and definitely wasn’t a “realtor”. My father’s been a broker for some time and never once belonged to any local, state or national group of realtors. Admittedly, he swims in the commercial end of the pool, but every now and then treads in shallow waters of residential. The only thing his refusal to pay up to the local realtor racket has cost him is access to MLS data. This data, and their piddly trademark, is pretty much all these associations bring to the table (that, and the exhaustive, half-hour long ‘ethics’ training at their conferences, of course).

As Joe said, it’s their data and they can do what they want with it. The states are actually the licensing bodies, and have by no means created monopoly conditions. Just check out some of the cut-rate brokers dropping their commissions and at least trying to innovate a bit with a la carte pricing — and the industry groups’ backlash against these new business models.

I appreciate the DoJ’s attention to the matter. But if you look a little deeper, it’s pretty obvious it won’t be too long before the market corrects (read: bitch slaps) this backward, protectionist practice. I’m with you Joe — what they do with their data is their own damn business. What I do with my dollar is mine — and it won’t be going to any Realtor® any time soon!

This entry was posted Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 10:56 am and is filed under Miscellany. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.