So, What Is This BLC and Should The Consumer Care?

MIBOR disclosed the elimination of the MLS system to their new Broker Listing Cooperative (BLC)is change at a Broker-Owneer meeting..referred by some as a "closed-door meeting" I was told there was a great deal of support for this change. Ultimately, the change was voted on by the membership (or the 13% of membership that votes). Unfortunately, I have not been able to receive the vote count for this initiative. Not that it matters except that it raises the question of just how wide-ranging is the support of this change.

One blog writer (who attended this meeting) states that the purpose of this change that was given by staff was to “recapture our listings from the public domain” I also find this interesting as the owner of the domain "IndianapolisMLS.com". Like many of these domains throughout the country, the fact that "MLS" could not be copyrighted (it is owned by Major League Soccer) has always been an issue within the National Association of Realtors.

I do not have as big of an issue with this (MLS vs BLC) as I do that somehow this change will allow our Board to protect the soverignty of listings ownership. Usage of the "BLC" acronym will be tightly controlled. It has aalso been widely reported that there will be no external feeds of this data to other internet listing services. I have not been able to confirm this issue, but if it turns out to be true, it adds a major exclamation point to the question of who does your Realtor really serve? In this day and age, the objective should be to have your listing available on every possible web site in the free world! As a consumer, I do not want to make it hard for somebody to find out my house is for sale. If the only places that can be found out are on Realtor based sites (www.Realtor.com, www.Mibor.net etc.) then I am not being served.

It has also been speculated that the creation of this BLC, is most likely an end-around lawsuits pending against NAR, regarding the so-called anti-competitive use of the MLS and IDX. As reported at www.agentscoreboard.com , "The reasoning behind this move is reportedly; “The excessive use of the terms MLS and IDX have made them a commodity and subject to claims that the listings are “public domain”, many outside of legitimate real estate professionals have usurped these terms for their own benefit.” This kind of stuff will only benefit large brokers since they can use their market share to dominate the local online market as they opt out of the IDX feed completely, smaller brokerages and online services will see their data dry up. The small guys are going to have trouble keeping consumer eyeballs, even with nifty tools.
This doesn’t help NAR’s image, especially at this time when the stock market is tumbling on housing and credit fears. I believe this will be seen as protectionist, especially since more and more consumers are looking for transparency, and NAR seems to be tightening its control of the housing data." (July 27, 2007).

Then there is the remote possibility that the local board, supported heavily by the largest brokerages, may be making a move that once again slaps around the alternative business models many smaller, independent, Brokers follow. The acceptance of the Internet in everyday life has made it possible that real estate brokerage can be a very entrepreneurial, and creative industry. The larger companies do not have the ability to easily change their busienss models. Could changing to the BLC offer the security blanket these larger organizations need to preserve their models?