Real estate markets scramble following cyberattack on listings provider
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Why hasn't an alternative emerged?
It would be amazing for buyers to have access to this system. You could query for homes matching all kinds of wild parameters. Instead, it's all under lock and key.
Zillow and the other public systems sit downstream of MLS with a paltry amount of (typically outdated) information. And these are barely searchable.
Because few are motivated enough to tackle 'boring' problems. Who wants to design a real estate database when you could be working on self driving-crypto-cloud-next level bullshit?
Lots of people take on "boring" markets. I don't think that's the problem.
Zillow and Redfin are a few steps removed from being MLS themselves. But for some reason they cannot morph into it.
If MLS threatens to shut them off, that might be grounds for an antitrust lawsuit.
Maybe they're too afraid to risk the business on it? Maybe they did the risk analysis and decided it's not worth it?
Zillow makes money by selling placement on the listings to other agents. Many Realtors really dislike Zillow because of this ("This is MY listing and they are putting someone else's name on it, taking 3% away from me.").
FWIW, I spent time at a large national "disruptor" broker and this is a non-trivial process. There are hundreds of MLS systems in the US, each with its own data, quirks, and synchronization issues. One has to manage so many feeds, cleanup, normalization, etc. Throw in the many data sharing agreements between various MLS systems and the simple act of deduping suddenly gets complicated.
For consumers, the value is that they can see an aggregate list in one place without having to sign up for them via an individual broker's site.
hell, i'd like to filter on that on the websites of fiber providers. they say, "we can't see what areas are covered. we can only see if a specific address is available." i've seen in the days of ADSL that one side of the street was able to get service, but directly across the street was not. Something about how the lines across the street are clustered in older equipment blah blah blah. So they telco doesn't know what equipment where without that specific address lookup.
To my understanding, mostly because the MLS services are owned by realtor associations, and the current model of how they work is highly lucrative to the industry, so they're incentivized to push back on any sort of competition.
This is partly through regulatory capture: real estate organizations lobbied state governments to set licensing requirements for who can actually be involved in the real estate market, and only licensed realtors are allowed to access the MLS.
There are two major class-action lawsuits currently underway that challenge this: https://www.businessinsider.com/real-estate-agents-lawsuits-...
That is largely dependent on the MLS. A lot of Realtors don't really like Zillow, for various reasons that largely boil down to selling marketing on the listings. Our MLS allows individual Realtors to opt-out of sending to Zillow, but otherwise listing data flows over to Zillow within a few minutes usually.
Now, if you have one of those opt-out listings, it doesn't mean that Zillow doesn't have the listing, it just means that they get it through other means, and that usually is what leads to outdated information. As far as the amount of information, they have access to, AFAIK, all the listing information, when pulled directly from the MLS. Going via other sources will make that vary.
An MLS is really just a database and associated tooling for advertising properties among Realtors in an area.
The MLS is controlled by a Realtor Association or similar. This is basically all the Realtors/Brokers in an area working together. This is often a good place to concentrate some customer support and data integrity checks, compliance, etc..., for example.
Then there are the Realtors who work with sellers to market properties to buyers, and work with buyers to find the properties and oversee showings, etc...
Realtors vary in quality, for sure. Some sell 1-2 houses a year, some sell 1-2 houses a week.
The system surely has a lot of problems. But, it also provides value in a lot of ways that aren't easy to just remove. So you want to list your own house? Who's going to take the photos? Are you aware of the applicable laws, say WRT commercial drone photography? Do you know what will get you sued if you say it in a listing? How are you going to pick the price? On the other hand, you want to buy a property by directly searching the MLS: are you up for signing the data sharing contracts required to give you access to that data? How are you going to structure the offer? Do you know what a love letter is and whether it's allowed as part of the offer? Do you know the difference between being pre-approved and pre-qualified? How are you going to get access to the property and are you going to accept liability for any damage/theft? If the owner is directly showing the property (they want to remove the Realtor as well), are you both up for staring at each other uncomfortably as you look through their house? :-)
There's an awful lot of money that goes into the Realtor industry. But, if it were easy to get rid of, For Sale By Owner (FSBO) would be more popular. As far as I can tell, at least in my area, FSBO basically doesn't exist.
(Full disclosure: Not a Realtor, SysAdmin to an MLS)
No other industry is so cool with hiring uninsured, unlicensed, and under skilled individuals because they don't want to spend more than $50 total, including your time, transportation, and any editing.
Most houses don't need drone shots, it's a particularly niche market, even for housing.
The headline here on HN seems inaccurate. The entire market is not halted.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this shows up in major economic indicators this month.
https://www.t360.com/insight/articles/the-2022-mls-system-te...
you guys need to get in to medical/prescription claims billing, payments, and reconciliation. That's the real fun stuff right there.