MRIS Members - How Do You Feel About Their Advertising Campaign?

This is one example of monopolization, just like the (Bell company back in the early 80's) no competition. I have seen other posting complaining about agents having to join several listing services in their state. Maybe we should have that problem. I do not think MRIS should be providing web site service; they should be their best as a LISTING SERVICE or WEB SITE SERVICE not both.  If you a Real Estate Agent in Maryland you have to subscribe to MRIS or you will not stay in business long. Just my 2c

Margaret- I as the listing agent spend thousands of dollars to market to get the listing then more to service and market the listing. The listing belongs to the listing broker. That has always been my issue with bottom feeder lead generation sites that come and take our hard worked listings to put on their website to then get a lead who they want to sell back to us, the listing agents.

I was very happy when our MLS announced that they will not be selling those leads that they find on the public MLS. Our MLS's goal was to get that lead before the bottom feeders do and get that lead back to us the listing agents for no cost to us. If it were not for listings, there would be no listings, thus, much harder for a buyer agent to find homes for their buyers assuming they have actually entered into a contract with their buyer.

Since we don't have dual agency in Florida there is not an issue with that. Besides, we give our buyers to our buyers agents.

Margaret - well I am not involved, but it has been interesting reading. Lenn, and others, raise some really good points about how this media blitz, adn the very foundation of what they are now proposing, is a problem. Unfortunately it sounds as if their tactics now are no different than so many others who play in this space. Money is tight for everyone and that seems to be behind it all.

Jeff

Margaret, I have been reading the updates on MRIS and just don't understand their thinking.  I got into the car the other day and there it was, right on WTOP, the radio ad for folks to start looking for their dream home right on Homesdatabase.com. 

I, for one, have never had a love affair with MRIS.  I have always thought of them being a service provider to us, their subscribers, not to sell to the public.  I am sure they are trying to expand their bottomline, but they should let their subscribers decide if their services are worth it or not.  I think it is just one more way to try to shove the agent out of the transaction.  Interesting they forget who pays the bills?

How does MRIS advertising Homesdatabase.com enhance their bottom line?  They are spending MRIS money to send home buyers to the listing agents, some of whom have no Homesdatabase.com subscription, thereby steering the consumer away from legitimate subscribers to Homesdatabase.com.

Margaret, I'd like to see people using MRIS to do searches and check out Open Houses.  Having said that, I agree completely that they should not be colecting leads. 

Margaret- Don't you have disclosure of agency in your state? I worked in California, Washington state and Florida when there was dual agency. The law in all those states said that the listing agent must make representation notice at first contact with any prospective buyer or seller. In fact, here in Florida for a few years we were technically required to have agency notices in our handbags because even if you were at a cocktail party and someone started talking about their house you would have to stop the conversation and give agency notice. I know that you and I have been in this business for about the same length of time so we more alike than we are different. :) 

I don't mean any disrespect as you are a very dear friend of mine. This same thing that is happening with your MRIS is happening in many other states, including ours and while our laws are different; I still think it is better for a consumer to contact the listing agent than be captured by the companies out there just waiting for MLS to go public so they can steal our hard earned listings to sell them back to us. Those companies certainly do not have the consumers best interest at heart.

I feel your pain and totally back your aggrevation.  It does seem as if they are hurting those they are supposed to help.  good luck out there!

Margaret- This is a subject that could be looked at in many ways. Yes I work hard to keep an internet presence, to market my listings and to create buyer leads. I would be foolish not to with 87% of Buyers heading to the internet first. But also as a listing agent the chances that a buyer call on one of my listings results in the sale of that listing is also very small. What it does do is allows me the opportunity to try to connect with that buyer and find them the right home. Much like a open house connection. So the question to me is do I see homedatabase as competition? No more so than I see Long & Foster or Remax or Prudential or Coldwell Banker or Homefinder, or, or or as being my competition. My goal is not to work with every one that comes along but to build a good solid relationship business that is based in part on internet presence. As for agency concerns, as I said the liklihood that the listing they contacted me about (my lsiting) is the 'home' for them is very small. But if by chance it was then we do have the opportunity to sell it to them even with our agency laws in place. There is nothing wrong with selling your own listings as long as all parties understand and accept the agency it presents. We all as independent contractors have an opportunity to decide how we want to work our business. If being strictly a buyers agent is the way then it should be understood that with that comes certain challenges such as the one you have mentioned. maybe if Buyer agency was the norm and not the other way around then what MRIS is doing would be a larger concern. As for MRIS spending money on print advertising, that is plain stupid. We all know print media is a WASTE of money.  So.....bottom line is what MRIS is doing will not impact my business.    

Margaret - This has really hit a nerve!  I agree that for the most part, MRIS (helpdesk and compliance) have been pretty good at dealing with problems at the agent level.  They have a few "rules" that I do not agree with, and it sticks in my craw that THEY tell us, in some respects, how to do OUR business.  Sometimes I feel like they forget that without their members, they'd have no reason for being...

I guess I just don't see WHY MRIS feels the need or perceives the benefit of collecting the leads generated from homesdatabase...could it possibly be that by offering this "service," they will decide they need to increase our dues to pay for their costs?  Maybe not, but I've been a Realtor long enough to know that everybody has their hands in my pocket.

margaret- Understood. However...as both a listing agent and a buyers agent in todays marketplace I welcome the opportunity to connect with any and all. maybe if we were back in the sellers market this converstaion would not even be taking place but since we are clearly in a buyers market that is enveloped in a recession could it be that MRIS is trying to help us? I am sure you are thinking how could I even think that. But maybe if we looked at it as MRIS working to help us (listing agents) bring more exposure to the thousands of listings that are all across the MRIS network and that in turn allows us to connect with more buyers then maybe, just maybe they are on to something.  Again this does not help just a Buyers Agent but then again their business model has been different from the beginning anyway. Who knows. I could be all wet behind the ears here but then again..... 

I was a member of AACAR and MRIS before moving to Charlotte almost 3 years ago.  I must say that overall, I have felt ever since that the MRIS was the best MLS system and should be a model for all MLS's around the country. 

However, I agree with you that the ad blitz is horribly misguided.  It should say "call your Realtor®" or something to that effect.  But I'm not suprised at the direction of the ad when I look at the leadership of the board.  Not to throw jabs but Long & Foster had the largest market share back then and I'm sure not much has changed.  This helps guys with market share sell more homes and slight everyone else.

Best of luck

Hi Margaret and all the commentors, "Whiner" here ;-) I definitely hear what this conversation is saying. That we at MRIS need to think more carefully about the message we convey in our advertising. You have my ear, and the ear of other members of the MRIS executive team. We want to support all of our customers.

To be clear, brokers and our Board of Directors did not start at "you should advertise HomesDatabase more" It was really as a result of some stats that we gave to brokers, and this was the kicker:

In the last year, HomesDatabase.com received nearly 15,000 non-ActiveAgent related visitors a day. Again, these are not visits to an ActiveAgent site. These visitors bypassed all other well positioned brokerage and agent sites, and found what might have been one of the best hidden real estate sites on the Internet – we never advertised it and made no effort to appear in search engines. Since there was no ActiveAgent name on the site, those 15,000 visitors were essentially abandoned. We only provided minimal contact information, and no links to agents or brokerage websites. That's a total of 15,000 potential opportunities abandoned…every single day.

So we have a lot of traffic that is not going to ActiveAgent subscribers. Based on our research with these visitors on why they were coming to our site (we hired a research firm to figure out why) it was because they were not yet ready to be "captured" by an agent or a broker -- that was a sentiment that came up again and again from those visitors.

Once we explained this to our Board, and considering the change in the market since the site launched 10 years ago, they told us to see if we could find ways to make that portion of the site work better for as many agents as we could, and advertising the site is one facet of how we are trying to do that.

Oh, and to be clear -- we do not ever pass along any registration information to any agent or broker.  We ask for an email address so that we can send lost passwords, and email updates to saved searched. e do not make any attempt to capture, convert, qualify leads in any way what-so-ever. Even I as the site manager do not have access to the contact information for the site visitors.