MLS Report from the Board of Directors July 2014

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The MLS worked on a host of update requests and system improvements from members, reviewed the FlexMLS contract renewal proposal, List Hub syndication services and Contracts & Form changes. MLS President, Karen Climo and our board members reviewed materials and made the several decisions in moving the MLS forward.

FBS Data Systems (FlexMLS)

  • We have a great team of REALTORS® working together on the MLS Board of Directors, and have been holding busy and productive meetings.  Recently, the Board met and approved a 3-year contract extension with FBS Data Systems (FlexMLS) to provide our MLS software, pending legal counsel review.  Based on our conversations with members, with our survey feedback, and in general the overall satisfaction, we were pleased to make this an easy decision.  We did do our due diligence and looked at other vendors – none of which offered near enough to turn our heads…

New Syndication Provider Coming Soon

  • We’ve also reviewed our syndication options and had a demo from ListHub of their product.  The Board has approved adding ListHub as an additional syndication provider, along with Point2 Agent, which allows each broker to make a business decision of which they would like to use.  This change will not take place for approximately 12-13 weeks, as we are now in line for installation.  There will be much more information coming about ListHub, how to use it, and training from their team as well.

Syndication & The Changing Players

  • The board also discussed content found in Sandy’s Midyear Meeting Report, related to the online listing displays, website rankings, initiatives by Realtor.com to compete with Zillow, Zillow’s leadership changes, and how the NAR Organizational Alignment will affect our MLS.  All members are encouraged to read the NAR Midyear Meeting Report if you haven’t already done so.

Contract & Forms Committee

  • As you have more than likely seen through the last Friday Recap email, and as a pop-up on Flex; we are phasing out the old versions of the Exclusive Right to Sell Contract.  The Contract & Forms committee, chaired by Steve Ray, made important language changes to the contract, and this new version is the one that is approved by the Board.  Any version, prior to the recent 6/2014 version, will no longer be accepted for submission to the MLS after August 15, 2014.   After the 15th the Board will return your contracts and request that the new version be obtained from your seller(s).

Members Affiliated with MLS Offices

  • The Staff is looking extensively at member offices with primary REALTOR membership in other associations to make sure their agent roster matches the one in our MLS.  A few issues were brought to light where MLS Only members were reporting only a handful of affiliated agents, but an office of many, many REALTORS was benefiting from the MLS system.  Parity for all is so important to us, and all should be treated equally and fairly – the staff will pursue these issues to resolution.