An ‘Open’ Door to a Brighter Day

Commentary by Beverly M. Faull

RISMEDIA, Dec. 26, 2008-During the current “correction” in the housing market, it is expected that our industry will make a number of short-term adjustments to its business. There are other fundamental changes evolving for the long-term benefit of the industry, however, that will be permanent.

Strategies related to data sharing were a part of the industry dialogue long before we entered this economic environment.

Now empowered by new Internet technologies, real estate consumers expect greater access to property listings, neighborhood profiles and other information. Many industry professionals have feared that sharing such hard-won listing data would eventually mean the end of the value of the Realtor or the MLS organizations, but this fear has yet to be validated.

It is true though that, for generations, protecting information had proven to be the key to market control. Looking forward past the fears of the forecasters of such gloom who have dropped in our path like felled trees, we see a bright future where market share grows proportionately to the willingness of the industry to be open to sharing such data.

As the business leader of Fidelity National MLS Systems & Solutions, I am charged with assuring that the data listed within each of our MLS organization partners is safe and secure. Because we believe the two core charters of the MLS are to offer an environment of both cooperation and compensation to other Realtors, we now advocate the MLS industry’s adoption of open architecture data platforms and cooperative industry agreements.

We believe this shift will free MLS organizations to form enhanced business relationships with contiguous MLSs and create “natural markets” that will replace the pre-defined MLS jurisdictions. Ultimately, this evolution of the MLS industry model will better serve the needs of the consumer. Many agents and brokers are prepared to look beyond the protection of their listing data in predefined markets to now gain reciprocal access to neighboring market and listing data.

We are already designing tools to specifically assist MLS organizations to move from protective stewards of the broker’s listing data to participants in the interconnected real estate network of the future. The evolution of the RETS, as well as recent advances in Single Sign-On (SSO) technology and authentication, are powering this change and will ensure data security. This degree of data protection remains paramount as we begin openly exchanging listing data across MLS jurisdictional boundaries.

The key question is, what will this do for the agent on the street, the broker in the back office and the MLS providing member services? Realtors have always functioned to bring listing data to the MLS and then to interpret that data for home buyers and sellers. But now the role of agent and broker has become even more important to the consumer in assisting in synthesizing information and providing relevance of that data. All the information we now gather regarding neighborhoods, schools, crime and tax data requires careful interpretation to better qualify properties on behalf of the consumer, and to assure full transparency in the transactional process.

We predict that the sharing of listing data through open architecture protocols will soon become an industry standard. The real estate professional who has insight into the meaning of the data and is able to share this insight will be the most successful and of the most value to the consumer in the near future.

This new way of openly managing and sharing real estate listing data leads us to a whole new door for the real estate industry. A door that when opened will reveal a much brighter new future for both the MLS and brokerage industries.

Beverly M. Faull is senior vice president and general manager for Fidelity National MLS Systems & Solutions.

For more information, visit www.realestate.fnf.com.