Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 18, 1993 TAG: 9310160037
SECTION: MONEY PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JANE BRYANT QUINN WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Brokers exercise their control through a "toll bridge" known as a Multiple Listing Service, which usually is owned by the local Board of Realtors. Every broker with a property for sale lists its address, price and other vital statistics on the MLS; every broker with a buyer consults the MLS for suitable properties to show.
You don't have to use a real-estate broker when you sell your house. You can offer it yourself, through a newspaper ad, for example. But you won't reach as many qualified buyers as you would through an MLS. That's why it's a toll bridge. You have to cross it to make the sale, paying the real-estate agent (the toll-taker) a 6 percent or 7 percent commission.
But technology is on the verge of breaking up the current MLS monopolies. Fledgling telephone, cable television and computer systems are starting to offer MLS property listings. Some also accept listings from people who are trying to sell their houses themselves. Here are examples of what's going on:
HomeView Realty Centers, in which IBM holds a minority interest, has three locations in the Boston area and plans to go national next year. They're all public-access kiosks, containing data and pictures of some 22,000 homes. Shoppers "walk around" the listed houses, inside and out, just by touching a computer screen. "Ultimately, this will expand to cable TV," said President Robert Norton. "But that's probably five to seven years away."
HomeView allows broker listings only.
The Multiple Listing Exchange Association in San Diego, co-venturing with Sony, has set up two kiosks so far, in malls. Browsers can tap into the system to see houses for sale, rental properties and mortgage information.
President Fred Cerra says the information can be dialed up from anywhere in the country or the world. Unlike HomeView, the Multiple Listing Exchange Association encourages listings "for sale by owner." If the house doesn't sell, Cerra figures, the broker who agrees to run the kiosk probably will get the business.
Comp-U-Home in Baltimore, run by Grempler Realty, lets anyone with a home computer access its listings. Buyers who find an interesting house just call the agent.
AT&T Network Systems, together with some regional telephone companies, is developing new delivery systems for a wide range of consumer information. A real-estate agent can dial up data on a property, including color pictures, from any office in the system and display it on a personal computer. AT&T is working closely with the National Association of Realtors, hoping to become the MLS's electronic highway.
Honolulu real-estate broker William Chee, president of the NAR and highly aware of the hurricane force of technological change, is trying to drag his industry into the modern world. An NAR task force is now studying the MLS, to see if the real-estate industry has any reasonable hope of maintaining local control of the information or if they should cut deals with outside vendors.
by CNB