MLS CEO speaks to value of data share for REALTORS®

MLSs, an indispensable part of the real estate industry, are gaining ground in the integration space. The trend is fueled by increasing demand for greater accuracy, efficiency, standardization, and widespread access across multiple jurisdictions.

A consortium of Minnesota MLSs (MichRic) has answered the call by REALTORS for deeper, wider access to real estate data. Their journey began with gaining feedback from its subscribers who, when surveyed by Clareity Consulting, claimed “access to data from multiple MLSs” is essential to facilitating their businesses—a whopping 87 percent agreed.

As a result, eight Minnesota MLSs now take part in a reciprocal data share agreement through RPR View™, a move that provides more than 17,600 REALTORS® with access to data from neighboring MLSs.

RPR View™, one of the many MLS integrations offered through the real estate data platform, is a set of sharing permissions which allow partnering MLSs to make listings viewable by REALTORS® in other markets, all via the RPR platform.

Permissions within RPR View™ are segmented into on- and off-market, and confidential. MLSs choose their own fields to remain compliant with local business rules.

As with all integrations, there is no cost from RPR for this feature.

To find out, we interviewed two executives from one of Minnesota’s leading multiple listing services, NorthstarMLS® (15,700 subscribers).

John:
The fundamental reason for choosing to share data through RPR is that there are no fees or contracts, but that would be an oversimplification. The fact that it’s free takes a lot of dialogue out of the political environment.

Tom:
When we first learned about RPR View™, we knew immediately that it would make things easier for our users. They are already familiar with RPR, which helps offset any learning curve. And features like single sign-on (SSO) are added benefits.

We knew that if there was something we were able to do, then we could do it with RPR. Of course, RPR View™ is offered as part of our NAR member benefits so there are no costs or contracts.

John:
As for confidential fields, we anticipated, and RPR worked hard to find a way to display those fields to REALTORS®. Thankfully, everybody who uses RPR is within the REALTOR® family and therefore licensed. So, together we found ways to assure consistency across all boundaries.

John:
We had been involved in a data sharing agreement for several years … a coalition of parties who contributed data to a vendor who homogenized it and sent it back to the parties. We called it a ‘crock pot.’ It was expensive and not entirely accurate.

What RPR’s been doing for a long time now is being able to pull in all this data and make it digestible, while still being accurate.

John:
It was painless. Plain and simple.