Oooo.. (Booo) The NIGHTMARES MLS Ops Face With Syndication

In reply after Vistor’s Post (WAV)

A few points to touch on….

Yes… Syndication has spiraled out of control and has made IDX and/or VOW compliancy a nightmare.

In many cases once an MLS signs with a syndication partner and once data syndication has occurred, the MLS then has limited authority over the data that is being sent to literally.. HUNDREDS, of originating aggregators WITH PERMISSION. (Yes.. Hundreds.. I will explain a little further down..)

There are a couple of issues that have a cause-and-effect at the first-layer or MLS level.

1) Many small MLS operators have no IT staff, IT staff with limited knowledge which would include the  dual-role staff such as a receptionist who knows very basic desktop troubleshooting steps. The effect obviously, is the MLS staff knows little about the syndication process other than firm listings are going out to syndication channel partners. (google base, Yahoo!, Zillow, etc..)

2)The MLS who does have a professional staff wants to provide exceptional benefits to their membership. The effect here is that a standard contract is signed without careful negations as to what role the MLS will play on a technical level outside of fielding complaints.

Essentially, the smaller MLS should look carefully at the MLS with the professional IT staff and take note.

In many cases although the MLS may hold Copyright on the listings, the Listing Firm actually OWNS the listing. Because of this, the syndication program when implemented becomes Broker or Firm-Centric  and the MLS simply becomes a data provider with little to manage except for marketing an enhanced product for the generation of non-dues-revenue, and posting a generalized monthly syndication report.

In more layman’s terms… The firm owns the listings, the firm chooses where the listings go.

THREE factors that come into play here is let’s face the facts..

The broker’s job is to sell Real Estate.. Not to research and educate themselves on every little technical benefit or item they run across.. If a broker did this, they wouldn’t have time to practice Real Estate… It would be impossible as there is just to much out there learn with the technology landscape changing on a daily basis. This is one of the many reasons an MLS should hire qualified technologists. Not only is it self-supporting the business model, but it is providing your members with a huge benefit.

The second factor comes into play with the way the Syndication Partner has their system setup. An MLS should be careful in my opinion about the opt-in / opt-out mechanism and it should be clearly specified contractually what the Option Clause should or shouldn’t do.

Personally due to the need to educate members I see the best route as “Opt-In”, or the Broker manually having to select which channels they wish to use, AFTER being educated by their MLS as to the pros and cons of each channel. One item to carefully watch out for is the mechanisms put into place by the Syndication Partner for how the Opt-In works. What has proven troublesome and raised complaints I believe is one such opt-in tool I have seen. The master button… “Opt into All”…

When syndication first started, this was not an issue… As Partners added channel upon channel, upon channel all of their listings with this means of option are automatically “Opted In”. This I believe is NOT the way to syndicate listings. As many MLS technologists have seen, more times than not.. Once these accounts are setup, the Broker may never log back in.. Once day I received a call from a Broker who was furious his listings were on “Site X”.  After spending an hour of staff time researching (As an MLS portal was not available to see what Brokers were sending which listings, where) we had to tell the Broker that he selected to opt in his listings and he was sending his listings to the specified channel which was spamming the entire MLS. (Notice, we spent an hour of staff time.. Because of no MLS portal) The broker did not read updates, a nd was unaware that over ten additional channels had been added….  This is why I specifically disagree with this type of mechanism being implemented.

Additionally and also contractually, the MLS should be able to have the authority to permanently or temporarily disable any partner-channel which they deem inappropriate or harmful to members.

The MLS should also have access to their member’s selections in the event a member needs assistance.

Victor’s take on listings being out there is so very true… In another case of complaint, we put in (with three IT staff) a combines 27 hours of research to document how what we thought was a rouge site was obtaining data. This is when we learned about Syndication Syndicators such as Oodle…

Oodle RE-syndicates (by broker consent.. it’s also in the fine writing, and a prime example why each MLS should research each partner channel) to OVER TWO HUNDRED CHANNELS! (Hey.. they say so themselves on their website.. They just do not clearly specify  or list what those channels are.. At least, not that I could find although I did find a “sample” but it did not line up to their statement of over two hundred channels, and was more of a “we syndicate to partners such as” statement.

The math is easy at this point…. 4000 listings to 200 channels  is 800,000 listings out there from a single MLS… It is impossible at tat point to police every channel for compliancy,  and even if you did.. The BROKER sent his/her FIRM-owned listings to the channel.  Stop right there.. Many MLS operators have lost all control at this point and are helpless… They get complaints from the Broker about what the Broker’s Listings are doing, and they are powerless…

After all.. You DID give a benefit to your members.. And now you will have to educate as to why you are taking a channel away and in some cases get approval from Directors or Senior Leadership… Thou giventh and taketh away is usually not a happy time in this industry…

This also makes convoluted, the process of policing your OWN IDX and VOW.. You see a site not on a Participant Data Access Agreement and spend your  time researching only to find out it is one of those 200 channels Ooodle is (ethically and legally) re-syndicating to…  The battle could easily be over and lost here.. But it continues…

Search your ID vendor sites… Many of these sites offer as a free or paid service to your brokers/members/participants the ability to syndicate their listings…

Most IDX vendors I have spoken to are more than happy to opt-out an entire MLS based on each MLS operator’s rule sets and they are very polite about it…  There are however, those we have seen that say they will not, but do anyway…

What I do not understand.. Is most MLS operators have a Copyright filed by an attorney several times per year.. Remembering the MLS STILL holds Copyright Protection to photos and listing data, it is a FEDERAL CRIME to knowingly distribute or display, reproduce, etc.. that data…  But, back to syndication… The Broker chose to send their listings through the Syndication Channel.

On top of that, some MLS operators have chosen to further bolster protection as we did. We saw this problem coming and took a two-pronged approach.. We added a transparent layer iconic image as a Watermark to ALL MLS photos on the media  server.. The Watermark image we used, is a Registered Trademark thus if someone uses our member’s photos illegally, with proper documentation not only can we prove a Copyright Violation but also an Infringement on our Registered ® Trademark.

Like so many policies though, if you are not going to enforce ALL of your rules and regulations.. Don’t worry about enforcing any of them as you cannot pick and choose..

Issue here being.. Most MLS operators have no clue how widespread their listings are.. They are everywhere… It is a nightmare… But it IS a fixable nightmare.. It can be repaired contractually.

The last thing I would recommend to other MLS operators is to carefully when educating yourself and researching “channels” look at what areas of non-dues-revenue generation could be effected. Look at the hundreds of channels and think about companies you may be receiving a licensing fee from and then you will need to research the channels to see if the license fee paying vendor is a parent company.. If so, you could be kissing that revenue goodbye,

I think, Less.. may just be best with Syndication, but I cannot give any advice on the channels you choose…. That’s why it is called a choice after all.. It is your choice.. not mine and I would advise to include your tech savvy members and start away from listening to sales reps… Basically Syndication is syndication.. it is the passing of a dataset from one vendor to another accurately and actively..

It IS a benefit to members (Especially those who are not a part of a franchise who typically syndicates their franchisees listings on a national level…,)

If it is available another option is to have two sets of photos.. One Watermarked, One Not.. At least this way, you can tie the watermarked photos back to MLS data-services and the broker can use their photos without the watermark for what they choose.. This  would simplify compliance.. If the Watermark is there. You can enforce.. (Technology Partners, IDX,, VOW) if it is not, you can safely assume it is not MLS protected data and move on.. I imagine the Broker would like this option as well.. I do not know however, of any MLS provider currently hosting separate media servers or offering this service.. But yes.. It could be accomplished…

As far as the inaccuracy Victor has spoken about? I don’t care how many millions went into which vendor’s algorithm for mathematically figuring out property values automatically … The majority of them are junk and what is scarier is the consumer sees a house $80,000 less than a listing price of $410,000 and their mind is instantly made up that the house is only worth $330,000 and before speaking with a REALTOR®, the potential is there for the buyer to start off with ..”We won’t go a penny higher than $330,000. Also.. I have seen brokers use measurements, stats, etc from big Real Estate Sites.. Can we say HUGE disclosure issue? HUGE liability?  OUCH!

This is not helping the broker….

Many of the channel sites I have seen collect and resell consumer data…

If YOUR listing is seen on one of these third party sites and extensive data is collected by this site from a potential client, and the client finds out that the site sold their personal information…. You can forget about having the person as a client.. Without even knowing,, it is possible the Broker will never know how much business they have lost to this and other sites (malware sites included) and That is the SCARIEST part..

Then comes the AMOUNT if sites…

There are too many sites..

It confuses the consumer… What do I do if I am a consumer? Where do I go? We can safely assume (I think.. without research it is just an assumption) that the typical listing when syndicated, will appear on 300 sites… This is NOT a good thing for the Broker or Consumer…

A) It does NOT drive traffic (in most cases) back to the Broker and Local (TRUSTED) site for lead capture…

B)It confuses the Consumer.. They do not know any longer what the trusted site is.. Used to, it was simple.. landed on the  MLS Public site which in our case drove back to the listing agent, or the Broker Site (which is where I think we can all agree we want traffic to end up. Is with the LOCAL Agent/Brokerage/Firm)  Broker’s site, Realtor.com, Trulia and Zilow…  It was simple.. The consumer KNEW who was who… Syndication has turned it into a guessing game…

To simplify it.. Go to google…  Search for “ Car Parts “ .

If you do not know much about cars, how do you know which link is the best to click on? You don’t….

Why? Because there are hundreds to choose from.

This is what I believe the consumer now sees when searching for Real Estate.. TOO many sites to select and choose form.. It confuses them.. At least.. It would me and I work in the industry!

A last resort, a crazy thought… kamikaze in nature … and possibility.. Syndicate to whom you want.. Everyone… BUT.. What would happen if you took out the majority of physical locators?

Leave City /State /Zip / Subdivision

REMOVE all pieces of physical property location (Street Name, Direction, Prefix, Suffix,  Street Number…etc..)m Remove Legal Description, APN/PID/PIN,  Map X, Map Y, Latitude, Longitude, . \

Include Listing URL, Broker URL, Agent URL…

What COULD this do?  Well… It could backfire.. But it would:

A)     Devalue the data syndication channels receive.. aka it would not be anywhere near as valuable as IDX data…

B)      Logically, If I want to site “x” and could not physically locate the property and saw a ‘Click here for listing agent” I would click the Listing Agent’s site link.. and Wallah.. THERE is the additional information about the property…

With this option you would have to pre-educate members… Again.. I can promise you (because we have had it happen) these Big Players will notify your members that you have taken their listings off of America’s most used search site for real estate. (This in most cases is erroneous as each web site marketing approach says this or searches for a survey until they find one that places them in front). Most likely, you will become the enemy and anything you say will fall on deaf ears… Fact of the matter however is, The link is there.. If the consumer wants more information such as address, the consumer merely has to CLICK THE LISTING AGENT’S LINK to retrieve that information and LAND on the LOCAL search site… 9Check state laws and listing agreements as it could impact whether you can legally select this “Send To Internet Option” and if by using a Technology Partnership Agreement, it takes you OUT of that clause in some state’s listing agreements…

So wild and crazy, (and probably unpopular) thought?    Probably..

But a solid (yet semi-psychotic) last resort of negotiations while increasing the value of listing data and increasing traffic to listing agent sites?   Possibly….

In closing.. I DO think Syndication is a VERY. VERY important tool for your Brokers.

Ancillary to that I believe that a significant amount of thought and planning needs to be placed into Your MLS syndication so that it HELPS brokers and not raises the potential of harming Brokers on a local level.. This is exactly what could happen, in the very near future if someone doesn’t begin pulling the reins in on this horsey cart..

I am thankful consultants are starting to see the same nightmare I have been ranting about now, for a year…

And that’s all I have to say about that…

@Brian_Bell – AgeekBlog.com