Multiple list service centers to consolidate

Last edited at 3:28 p.m. on Aug. 14, 2013

Market conditions are improving for local real estate agents and soon a cooperative arrangement between local multiple listing service offices would create a "one-stop shop" for housing data in the region.

Greater Springfield Board of Realtors Association Executive Jessica Hickok said regionalization has been in the works for nearly a year, and those efforts are now beginning to bear fruit. On Aug. 7, the GSBOR formally committed to participating in the consolidation of seven local MLS data centers into one system, which will operate under the name the Southern Missouri Regional MLS LLC, managed by Hickok. She said the boards of six other Realtor groups in southwest Missouri are expected to vote to join the umbrella MLS by Sept. 15. Included in the new system are the Greater Springfield Board of Realtors, Ozarks Board of Realtors, Ozark Trail Board of Realtors, Newton/McDonald County Board of Realtors, Southwest Missouri Board of Realtors, Tri-Lakes Board of Realtors and the West Plains Board of Realtors.

Currently, eight different boards of Realtor associations in southwest Missouri offer their members data services through five separate MLS systems, Hickok said.

The new multiple listing service organization would represent more than 2,600 real estate agents in southwest Missouri once up and running by the summer of 2014, according to informational materials developed by Denver-based consulting firm Focus Forward Consulting Inc. Eight area Realtor organizations paid to help create the regional MLS organization.

Hickok said SoMo Regional would help generate consistent housing data for home buyers and sellers across southwest Missouri, reduce costs for real estate agents who have to join two or more multiple listing services and help protect the Realtor brand.

“Right now, there is an overlap between Springfield and Branson. When you get into the Highlandville area, it is a gray area. Some of the Realtors work with Springfield, and some of them work with Tri-Lakes,” Hickok said. “If you want to have your home listed in Highlandville, in this overlapping area, you would have to choose an agent or local Realtor who belonged to both associations if you wanted your listing in both (multiple listing services).”

MLS systems collect data related to home sales and values and are used widely by real estate agents, brokers and their agents, according to Hickok. The data can be utilized to help set sale prices or to help agents find homes within a given price range, data agents lean on more in an active market.

CJR President Shaun Duggins said having a single system for housing data and single fees for agents is an efficient idea.

“It would just save everybody a lot of money,” said Duggins, who serves on the West Plains and Greater Springfield boards.

He said CJR spans four different local multiple listing services via the GSBOR, the West Plains Board of Realtors, the Ozark Trail Board of Realtors and the Tri-Lakes Board of Realtors. Duggins estimated 25 to 30 CJR agents paid fees of around $70 per month to the Springfield and Tri-Lakes boards to have access to the MLS data.  

“The boards can still stand alone. This would just put the (multiple listing services) together,” Duggins said, adding the move to a single MLS would also save agents time. “I can’t see a single thing wrong with it.”

However, Hickok said the Ozark Gateway Association of Realtors in Joplin notified her it would not be joining SoMo at this time.

Kim Cox, association executive for the Ozark Gateway Association, said her organization believes in the consolidation effort – so much so that it spent $9,000 to help hire the consultant Focus Forward, giving it the opportunity to have SoMo foundation board members – but it can’t afford to lose the revenue it generates for providing multiple listing services.

SoMo plans to use the MLS platform Flexmls, a product created by Fargo, N.D.-based FBS. The Joplin association utilizes Irvine, Calif.-based CoreLogic’s InnoVia MLS system.

“We would need some time to start to make changes and shift our expenses and income to make it feasible for us to get into,” she said. “Just because it’s not financially feasible at this moment doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t want to join it later. We just won’t be part of creating the bylaws, rules and regs.”

As SoMo general manager, Hickok would wholesale the data to the various Realtor boards in the area, which could then still charge their own fees for access to regional MLS data, once SoMo is fully running. Hickok declined to disclose the current pricing structure in Springfield, noting prices for SoMo had not been finalized, but said the cost to utilize SoMo’s MLS data would be roughly equivalent to joining a single multiple listing service now. According to Focus Forward data provided by GSBOR, the projected wholesale cost per month per active user would be $11.75, with individual association groups able to charge their members more.

The move to a single MLS comes at a time when the local housing market appears to be hitting its stride.

CoreLogic reported Aug. 6 that June was the 16th consecutive month of home-price increases nationwide. According to the June CoreLogic Home Price Index, U.S. home prices, including distressed sales, which include short sales and real estate owned transactions, rose 11.9 percent compared to the same month in 2012. In Springfield, CoreLogic reported an increase of 8.1 percent in home prices, including distressed sales, compared to June 2012, and a 1.9 percent jump from May of this year.

Hickok said SoMo would also help guard against the threat of MLS data becoming widely available to nonmembers of local Realtor boards.

“Right now, you have to be a member of a local Realtor association to join the MLS [in Springfield], but in Kansas City and St. Louis, that’s different. Those (multiple listing services) are not Realtor owned, so you don’t have to be a member of a Realtor organization to have access to the MLS data,” Hickok said. “Southwest Missouri does not want that.”

Moving forward, Hickok said she and her staff at the GSBOR expect to merge the disparate MLS systems this fall. The Springfield MLS would become the first formal member of SoMo around March 31, with each subsequent organization joining every four to six weeks.