MLS Data, Real Estate Standards, and MLS / Brokerage Relations With CRMLS CEO Art Carter

Brokerage Insider

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, everybody. Welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interviewed the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host, Eric Stegemann. I'm the CEO of TRIBUS, one of the largest independent prop tech companies in the real estate space and provider of custom brokerage technology to medium and large brokerages in the United States, Canada, and even around the world.

Now, in addition, I'm also the managing partner, TRIBUS capital, a private equity fund, focused on the prop tech. On today's episode, we have art Carter. Now art is the CEO of CRMLS. It's one of the largest MLSs in the country, and I'm really excited to dig in with him on a slew of topics today. Art, thanks for joining.

Thank you for having me, Eric. Now I ask all my guests, you know, tell us a little bit about how you got to where you're at now. First of all, how did you get into real estate to begin with? So I've been working a couple of private and publicly held companies really on, you know, the technology and, and accounting actually fronts and had done some consultants.

Especially on the technology side for a smaller mid-sized companies. And it was really looking for a, a new challenge and found a, a position with a local association in 1997, I believe it was. And from there kind of transitioned to where I'm at right now which is CRMLS which was at the time that I started in 2005 was MLSMLS. And we have grown from an organization servicing about 20,000 brokers, agents, appraisers to about 110,000 today. So a lot of growth, a lot of expansion, a lot of changes. And my job today is vastly different than it was when I first started. And I'm the type of person who loves a challenge. So it is kind of right up my right up my alley and.

Well, so obviously being, being in charge of a, a, of an MLS has all sorts of of great pieces, but also probably some, some frustrating things that you deal with on a daily basis. So what's the, what's the the big kind of things are the things you're seeing right now, or that the MLS is dealing with that are maybe challenges that you're working.

Well, in all honesty, the, the legal environment that we're facing some of the the legal environment and the, the restrictions that some of the things that are going on legally are, are placing on us as, as multiple listing services. That is a challenge. I think that, you know, we're really trying to.

To accomplish moving in, in real time with the marketplace and providing brokers and agents with real value. And it's always difficult, especially when it comes to a policy standpoint and a rule standpoint, I think a lot of times, not so much necessarily at the brokerage level, but at the agent level, there is not a lot of education that is being done as to what the multiple listing service.

What it does, what some of its requirements are, why those requirements are there. So that's always a difficulty that we face is that educational piece and throw COVID into that and our inability to get in front of people, you know, as effectively. Zoom's great. But. I'm a firm believer. Real estate is about relationships and most of those relationships are built face-to-face and, you know, sometimes one-on-one even, and COVID really, really put a Kirk in our ability to do some of the things that I really think that we needed to do to keep, you know, our brokerages and our agents kind of in the same ballpark as what it is that that is going on in the industry.

Our difficulty always lies in the fact that there's such a high turnover amongst our members. And when I go out and speak, it's not all that surprising when I ask people, how, how many of you have been are newer into the business and have been in the business for less than seven years to have 50% of the crowds crowd raised their hands?

75% of our agents probably don't even remember life before Zillow. And so there's always that difficulty in educating people in early, putting that value proposition forward for the MLS. Well, let's talk about that for a second because you know, I've been in this industry for 22 years now. And even from my 22 years ago when I jumped into it, the concept of ward and MLS is, has changed significantly.

And even I was kind of right on that precipice of where. The concept of an online MLS existed. Cause they, my office, when I first started selling real estate real estate, we still have the cards and the the CD ROMs that were available for, for folks. Right. And so the concept of an MLS definitely seems to have changed.

From, you know, the original idea being more or less, just an offer of compensation amongst participating brokers to something a lot more than that. So how, you know, how did we get from point a to point B and where do you think we go from here? Yeah. I don't know that I would, I would agree that it has changed that much.

I've been, I've been preaching for, you know, 17 years now that I run a broker cooperative and it's more than just, you know, it's more than just compensation. It's about the cooperative. This marketplace, that is the multiple listing service is so important to the brokerage community. So important to the appraisal community.

So important to that, to the baking industry that provides loan products and, you know, valuation services out to, out to the, to the consumers, this ecosystem, you know, Even though the technology has changed, even though, you know, we've gone from books to tear sheets, to, to online systems whether, you know, resident on somebody's desktop or delivered, you know, via the internet, you know, the, the basic underpinnings of the multiple listing service.

Really should have been the same across the board. And that's this cooperative that, you know, these offers of compensation, you know, have flowed in between members and the, the, the benefits of that. So the ecosystem within the real estate industry are so, so important. And, you know, I think even more so as we've moved into this electronic you know, this electronic age, I feel like I'm dating myself by saying that, but, you know, I agree with you.

I was around before, you know, there were really these, these large databases, but that all being said, You know, there's such value to that cooperation. It's not the compensation that necessarily runs the whole entire value proposition of, of an MLS. It's it's really that cooperation and the action. Too close to a, a full marketplace, as you can get as far as information, that's really what the value is that we bring in, you know, what we try to preach here.

You know, we, we, it's your MLS, you know, kind of transitioned in 2008. Talking more about taking on more data and providing more data to our brokers and our agents. And that is so Keely important for people going forward. Consumers don't have consumers, don't have borders in. And this this new world, they have access in all honesty to a greater breadth of information than most real estate professionals have in their own MLS.

And it's been a key part of what it is that we're trying to do. And that whole cooperative cooperative piece is, is, you know, I, I hope long-term that, you know, it doesn't get that the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bath water and that the brokerage community does understand that. So, you know, yes, I agree with everything.

You said that at the core, it's all about cooperation, but, but obviously the level of services that a, an MLS provides these days definitely seems different from where I was in back in 20 21, 22 years ago, where. It was you logged in, you could see what properties were for sale and what the commission rate was, which that's, that's a whole other topic of, of knowing what the commission rates are.

Right. But but you know, that's, that's pretty much what you could do and, and they wouldn't have dreamed. And in fact, my MLS. You know, more or less, poo-pooed the idea of offering other technology. But now it seems like every MLS, you know, you've got tax systems like realists and, and all of these other systems like that, that are out there.

You've got MLS says that offer CRM tools, even beyond just the regular. Save search alerts and things like that, that traditional MLS is have, you've got email marketing tools. You've got mobile apps that they offer. It seems like pretty much everything under the sun when it comes to technology, you know, at least some MLS out there has done a deal to license many tools for, for their members usage.

And, and obviously that's shifted where. Tried to, I think, kind of compete in that world. And now it seems like a lot of MLS are stepping in and I know our clients are always concerned about MLS is stepping into that tech space and offering tools beyond. You know, the, the normal, the original concept of broker competence working together, brokers working together.

So, you know, obviously a CMS is as a organization that does offer a lot of tools. What would you say to the brokers that are out there that think, you know, like, Hey, I'm, I'm a broker I'm trying to compete on tech and here's this MLS, that's trying to do the exact same thing and, and pulling people away from my value proposition.

Yeah. You know, I don't know that that's ever the intent of any MLS, but one of the things you've got to recognize Eric, is that you and I both been around long enough to know that there's been ups and downs in this industry. Yeah. We have 24,000 people licensed brokers within our system. And I always kind of chuckle when somebody talks about this is what the brokerage community wants because those 24,000 people it's your most probably have 36,000 opinions about what they want and, and how to provide it.

And that's the difficulty at a, at an MLS level is really. You know, do we only service the large brokerages then, because that, you know, has a completely different value proposition than serving the mid-size brokerages than serving, you know, the small mom and pops and the vast majority of the brokers within the CRMLS system fall into that small mom and pop arena.

So it is a very difficult road. One of the things that. Know, I know that you will see some of the larger MLSs start to do and really our first foray into this was kind of the. This API for showing systems. And, you know, the, the goal is to really kind of cement that cooperation from amongst the brokerage community.

The MLS is in a unique position, probably the only one in the industry to provide this platform for brokers, to cooperate with each other. And you're going to see, especially at CMLs a level that we're moving more and more and more away from these all-inclusive site license tool sets. And the more of an arena where we're providing this connectivity and between, you know, whether it's offer systems or showing systems or lockboxes, you know, there really needs to be, you know, some of that broker choice.

And I, I, that's where I would agree with, with the brokers and that, you know, we have stepped up because there's been. You know, some reasons and I've gone through market terms in all honesty where. You know, between 2005 and 2008, the broker's opinion of what technology offerings that we pushed out there, you know, vary pretty drastically because you know, the market turned at that point.

So, you know, but at this point, you know, we've, we've grown, we've reached the spot. And with the capabilities of, of being a little bit more technology agnostic and providing those connectivity tools where brokers have that level of choice, they have that ability to differentiate themselves. But what we want out of the brokerage community is to cooperate with each other and share information across showing systems, to share information across, you know, offer platforms, to share information, you know, those areas in which it makes.

To have one tool in the tool set, and we should have one tool in the tool set. But where it doesn't then, then we should offer, you know, multiple offerings and, and price it. And I mean so much to dig in there. So obviously as a, as a vendor who, who only works with, you know, usually medium and large sized brokerages, for the most part our, our brokers customers are always concerned, but what you just said is, is what I think all of them dream their MLS.

It is, it's a, you know, essentially a data middleware layer. That's very good at what it does that helps brokers work better, brokerages work better together. And that's what they want. Easy access to the data. So for all of you, MLS is out there. I would encourage you to definitely talk to your brokerage members because I think what art's saying here, right?

I think you'll pretty ubiquitously here. That's what they're looking for. Even the smaller members. They just want the ability to choose the tools that are, that are best for them. So let's dig in on the showings piece here for a minute. Cause here at TRIBUS, you know, we've been for over a year now really kind of pushing this concept of the idea that showing should be open that there should be a way of getting that showing date.

Between the brokerages, the showing broker and the listing broker, they should be able to get access to that data. And, you know, obviously this year with all sorts of changes in the showing industry, for example Zillow buying, showing time obviously there has been more attention to that space, and I know you guys have been right there with us kind of pushing this concept and you guys held this hackathon about pushing the showing data.

So where do you think. Showings we'll be in let's say a year from now. Yeah. I, I, I would hope. And, and there's a lot of things that, that your has had, you know, cooking for a long period of time that for various reasons, the vendor community hasn't really fully embraced. And, you know, I, I would hope that, you know, we could partner with the brokerage community to put pressure, you know, on some of these vendors face.

To be more participant to, especially on the showing information page. You know, this is the, just the new world we live in. You know, I've talked to enough of the venture capitalists out there and it astounds me of the amount of money that is being poured into the PropTech tech space. And we're increasingly going to be faced with situations where.

You know, brokers may have very vastly differing opinions of their comfortability with ownership, structures of the technology that they use. And as such as I said, the MLS is. Uniquely placed to, to be able to ensure that cooperation amongst our brokerages and to share that information. I think the worst thing that could happen for the consumer is this fracturing of the technology.

And I think that's one of the arguments that MLS has, will give you is that that fracturing of the technology does harm the consumer. But fracturing of that cooperation, I'm on brokerages in order to deliver that data, you know, is cumi important. And we need a partnership with the MLS is across the country, need a partnership with the brokerage community to make this occur.

Because you know, there is no brokerage, that's an island. There is no MLS, that's an island and we're all dependent upon each other. And this next level of cooperation is really where we need to go. Technology dictates it, it demands. And it would be a very sad day that we had 10 dominant showing platforms out in the country with none of them talking to each other because that's not what the consumer wants.

And at the end of the day you know, we've got to deliver at the MLS level you know, Through our brokerages, you know, that, that consumer experience to where showings are ubiquitous and, and even on the offer side, things are ubiquitous. And even, you know, the things that we've got brewing with some of our brokerages, allowing our own brokerages to do their own front ends, if they so choose is, is a direction that we all need to go through.

And the MLS really shouldn't. Concerned about, you know, cooperative data sharing and making sure that the data that is shared is as accurate as possible to a common rule. So it, you know, it's funny, you're talking about all these things, because some of it is blog posts from seven, eight years ago that that we wrote.

And some of it is things that we've been talking about for awhile. In fact, TRIBUS actually rolled out a product called Flow three years ago. And the whole idea was it was an add edit tool for adding listings or managing listings. We, we actually worked with a brokerage and what they recognize is that it took.

Almost 10 hours of employee time because they managed all of the entry and, and ongoing management at the listing 10 hours employee time just to manage it in the MLS is cause they had to put it in more than one MLS to properly market the listing based upon where they were at. And so they managing the same data going into the same, you know, the same system.

And they're spending all this time managing it, plus they couldn't kick off appropriately workflows. So for example, if the agent signs the listing and gets everything set up, you don't want to necessarily put it in the MLS and have it live until you have photos until you have, you know, all the things to appropriately market a listing and, and cheers to MLS.

For sure for requiring our most MLS has now require photos to have it go public because, you know, I'm sure you remember back in the day, you'd go online and you'd see all these listings. And none of them had photos on them. And, and so who knows what it was like, but giving brokers the ability to add and edit their listings in a tool that is part of their daily workflow, I think makes so much sense.

Just. Having a tool that manages showings. But if you think about it, I mean, look at showings. As an example, we, we are we're in an environment where there was essentially a monopolistic player in that space. And even they had acquired many of their competitors and even the ones, the other competitors that were out there were kind of also rans, you know, single digit percentage of the markets are smaller.

And they kind of had access to all of that data. More importantly, I happen to know from experience, if you have a broker customer that wanted to go get access to that data, they would have to have huge increases in charges of what they were paying that vendor. To go get access to their own data.

And this brings up a whole other conversation about MITx that we could talk for an hour about too, but being able to get access to that on their own data you know, just for their own listings was one thing and that didn't even account all of their buyers or their, their buyer's agents data.

And, and it seems like to me, and you know, something we're keenly focused on at TRIBUS is on the data side of things, of helping. Brokers better compete using their own data. And without access to that without a good middleware layer, like a MLS is you really can't do much because you have all of these data silos and vendors telling you, you can't get things in and you can't get things out.

Yeah. And, you know, to those, to those ends you know, we at the serum a less level. And as much as we're always going to have a UI that we have to provide because there's, there's always going to be that, that group of our membership that is not going to want to provide their own user interface experience or are not going to have the capabilities of doing it.

But their, their data and their inclusion into the database is just as important as anybody...