What IS the MLS For? Hoby Hanna Said It Out Loud - But It Is Too Late

What is really interesting to me about all of this is that my firm, Elegran, is a recent addition to Howard Hanna (Oct. last year). Our office is now known as Howard Hanna NYC- and Manhattan doesn't even have an MLS. 

I have only been an agent for about a decade- so much of the past history I have only heard about bits and pieces. It was my understanding that NAR didn't really work easily for the NYC market- so the NYC Real Estate sector formed the Real Estate Board of NY (REBNY) loosely based off of NAR guidelines but adapted for our environment. Somewhere along the way, REBNY tried to create an MLS for Manhattan- but the brokerage owners couldn't agree on a number of points.

While we don't have an MLS- we do share a common data feed accessed by a few different systems that does have some of the features you might find within an MLS. - most notably the search functions (which are better than what the consumer has access to), there is a CMA tool- but today there are other systems that can do this as well (i.e. Urban Digs) and Syndication. 

I can''t speak well for other markets- but I know, at least for Manhattan, my job is not going to get replaced for a banker job for listings, loans and closings. A real world example of this was when a new client, planning on relocating from Miami, tells me they are buying an apartment they can live in- but their son can inherit and later live in. This set off red flags for me because what I know, and they didn't is that they wanted to live in a neighborhood dominated by co-op's within their price point and because owning a co-op is owning shares in a corporation - not real property. I told them that while their son could inherit the shares- if they wanted their son to live in the apartment- their son would have to go through the board approval process in order to move in. I then found out they wanted to buy the apartment in a trust- and again red flag on my side. Most co-op's won't allow for buying in a trust (some will under limited circumstances- but with revisions within the trust). The client now realizes, that their search is now much more likely to be for a condo- which is either going to be quite a bit more expensive and difficult to find in their preferred neighborhood- or may require them to give a heavier weight to their second choice neighborhood where condos are far more common and are closer to their price range. At least they learned this early in the process- but this is why I know that my job is not straight forward enough to worry about the role becoming the generic bank function. 

Having never used an actual MLS, I can't comment in an educated way. I can offer that our data here, with agents no less, is an absolute mess. I don't have a solution and it's clear solutions won't come quick or easy. 

This is the kind of post that makes people stop and think. The MLS has always been the backbone of cooperation, but your bigger question is where true value lives as technology, data, and consumer behavior keep changing. Data may become easier to collect, but trusted guidance, negotiation skill, local knowledge, and protecting clients through complex decisions—that is not so easy to replace. Thought-provoking read, Heath.