When scrolling through an online home listing, it’s not always easy to locate its attribution – that is, which agent and brokerage are representing the listing along with their contact information. Some brands include the attribution far down on the page, some display it bold at the top, and some use light font colors that don’t stand out.
When the attribution is easily accessible, it benefits the consumer – but can make competing agents feel as though they’re placing a competitor’s name directly in the hands of potential clients.
In the latest episode of “Keepin’ It Real with Nick Bailey,” panelists Jon Coile, Vice President of MLS and Industry Relations for HomeServices of America, Sam DeBord, CEO of RESO (Real Estate Standards Organization), and Bill Fowler, Senior Director of Industry Relations for Compass, join RE/MAX President Nick Bailey to discuss the current practices of affiliation presentation and whether the system requires change.
Bailey asks the question: Is better transparency – and uniformity – needed across real estate listings?
DeBord believes the “gatekeeper model” – withholding contact information inside home listings – is not working for consumers anymore, and both Coile and Fowler agree.
“As an industry, the MLS and the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) should be more transparent to the consumer. If the consumer wants the listing agent, why are we hiding that information?” Coile asks.
The history behind why contact information is sometimes concealed, says Fowler, is no longer applicable in modern times. He explains that in the early 2000s, phone numbers were withheld from IDX feeds to protect agents and brokerages from being an easy target for spam. Policy change, he continues, would be an essential step going forward to ensure that the public display of contact information isn’t subject to misuse.
NAR will soon vote on a proposal to require all MLS listings to include a brokerage name and contact information on each listing.
As for the specifics of how contact information should be presented, there is a range of opinions.
“As far as the lead goes, the lead belongs to the listing agent. This is the intellectual property of the broker itself and the broker really determines that the listing agent is the person who is acting as the agent of both the client but also the agent of the broker,” Fowler says. “So again, this is a broker choice situation. I would think the debate about this is going to be less about transparency and more about flexibility.”
Coile offers a differing opinion to calm the nerves of agents who worry about losing online leads to the listing agent, when another agent’s name is so accessible.
“We should be really clear that there’s no proposal that says if you put out your own IDX website, the only agent would be the listing agent. It’s going to be your website, it’s going to have all kinds of stuff about how great you are, and lead forms [that go] to you,” he says. “It’s just saying that if you contact me, you also have to say this listing came from [a different agent].”
Though thoughts on the technicalities differ, there is unanimous agreement in moving forward with a consumer-first approach. Bailey asks the panelists one simple question: Would setting a standard across all MLS’s for how attributions are presented benefit the real estate industry?
All three answer with a resounding, “Absolutely, yes.”
So, should real estate companies, portals and other entities be able to decide their own policies for listing attributions – or should formatting be mandated across the board? Watch this week’s episode of “Keepin’ It Real with Nick Bailey” to dive deeper into the conversation.
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Written by Leah Curtis
