Competition in the Real Estate Brokerage Industry - #9

Tuesday May 29, 2007

Increased Consumer Access to Information

A good portion of this section describes the IDX (Internet Data Exchange) display of listings, as well as pointing out deficiencies in it:

IDX has limited information - less than on the MLS

IDX can be out of date at any given time

Brokers can opt out of IDX, thus it would not have all listings in the MLS

All of these can be true. I know our IDX refreshes nightly, so the out of date criticism doesn't seem to be valid if most do the same. However, our MLS which lists a great many rural properties, doesn't even give the acreage of a residential listing. This doesn't seem to be a logical omission.

This section also discusses the availability of listings on third party sites not affiliated with NAR. Statistics are presented that make it clear that consumers are very comfortable with using all the sources on the internet to do their real estate research, and that there are many.

Entire series: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19 & final