NAR Allows Public-Facing Listing Sites

The debate over public access to real estate information long-controlled by REALTORS® took center stage Saturday at the Board of Directors meeting of the National Association of REALTORS®. At issue on the concluding day of the NAR Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo was whether MLSs should be able to charge members for establishing, maintaining, and promoting public-facing Web sites by including such sites in the “basic” services they provide to members.
Directors rejected the idea of “kicking the can down the road” to further consider technicalities of the proposal, as had been recommended by the NAR Executive Committee.
The move in favor of public-facing Web sites followed a separate discussion about the need for realtor.com to enhance and broaden its content and user experience in response to evolving consumer needs and expectations. Explaining that “these are not ordinary times” for the industry, realtor.com president Errol Samuelson offered a presentation to the Board that described the accuracy of the site as second to none because of its leading-edge technology. He noted that “90 percent of the site is updated every 15 minutes.” The rest of the site is updated in the same day.
Read highlights of the action-packed Board of Directors meeting that took place at Midyear.