Oh jeez, not another post on syndication and IDX...
It’s late, and I’m fairly certain that this horse I’m about to pound on some more is long since departed for greener pastures in the hereafter… but hey, what the hell, right?
So by now all readers of Notorious ROB have seen the latest developments in the Syndication Serenade:
This carousel is making me dizzy!
The responses from the peanut gallery are… well, predictable. You have the lamentations of the Transparency Mafia, the chortling of the KillZillThrill Cult, various declarations of how bass-ackwards the real estate industry is, and people who just love that the MLS is “fighting back”, and so on and so forth.
And yet, no one appears to be picking up on the most important trend here. So let me beat this dead horse one more time: brokers, REALTORS, vendors, Romans, friends, countrymen… it’s time to start making your plans for the post-IDX world.
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The average denizen of the RE.net cybercafe — that includes you, since you’re reading this on a blog — knows that the hot topic du jour is syndication. I wrote about it here and here already, but frankly, have been talking about this issue for quite some time. And influential bloggers like Jay Thompson and Kris Berg have weighed in, and Facebook groups are all over this issue.
And I’ve gotten a couple of phone calls, a number of emails, and Facebook messages and such debating my one critical issue with me. I wrote that the issue here isn’t syndication, which is more or less dead in its current form, but IDX. And that one cannot be against syndication but for IDX. Jay Thompson agreed, while Kris Berg (to take but one example) disagreed.
So I’d like to explore this connection more, to clarify why the distinction between syndication and IDX does not, and cannot, hold. And what that then means for the future of the industry, by connecting a couple of dots.
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Another brief update, before my day of continuous meetings begin….
Regarding my post yesterday on the syndication brouhaha brought on by Abbott Realty Group… first, you need to read Jay Thompson’s take on the subject. He takes longer to articulate the issue than I did, and I think more clearly than I have:
If you feel syndicators are harming consumers by making it difficult to contact listing agents, they you must, MUST, also keep your listings out of IDX distribution. The exact same issue of not reaching the listing agent that seems to bother so many in syndication also exists in IDX.
Trust me, we get calls and emails – seven days a week – from people searching on this very site who think we are the listing agent for the property they are viewing. Every. Day.
Don’t get me wrong. I **LOVE** IDX. It’s the lifeblood of my prospect generation efforts. 6,742 IDX search registrations in 2011 is a great thing. But if one of your main arguments for pulling your listings out of syndication is because potential buyers are confused and can’t reach the listing agent, then you MUST also pull out of IDX. The same problem exists in both systems. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Pulling out of syndication but using IDX smacks of hypocrisy.
The “syndication debate” will not end with smacking down TruZiltor. It will ultimately end up being a debate about buyer agency, the purpose of the MLS, the purpose of data-sharing. I’ve been predicting we’ll be doing that by NAR Annual in November. Maybe it’ll happen sooner than that.
I think that’s a wonderful, needed debate within the industry. Bring it on, I say, and sooner the better.
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Easy Is Not Simple
I would write a review of my week in New York City at the Inman Connect conference… except that I was in meetings pretty much all day long, and missed all but one session. I’ll direct you instead to people like Sean Carpenter for a recap.
But I did have a great series of #lobbycon sessions with new friends and old, typically over cocktails, and sometimes on street corners. That made me have one of those “a-ha” moments, which is either a flash of insight or complete idiocy. I figured you guys could tell me which it is.
Simple. Easy. The two are not the same thing. In fact, I think I could make a pretty strong argument that they are actually opposites of each other. That which is simple is rarely easy, and that which is easy is rarely simple.
I had the feeling last week that within real estate, all of the conversation, all of the energy, all of the innovation (to the extent that such is innovative at all) is around Easy. We rarely, if ever, talk about that which is Simple. Because for whatever reason, the Simple is hopelessly unrealistic in our industry.
Allow me to explain by way of introducing a new concept: The Starbucks Index.
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Continuing the tradition that started when the earth was young (or last year… depending on your definition of “time”), I’d like to present this year’s version of “Predictions Guaranteed to be Wrong, Or Your Money Back”! As we saw in the report card post, last year, I went 4.5 for 7 in predictions. I hope to bat lower for this year’s predictions. Of course, I can guarantee 0 for 7 by making ridiculous predictions, like “The Jets will win the SuperBowl”.
Without further ado, the predictions for 2012…
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In 2009, I batted .600 in predictions for 2010. And I thought that was fun. It’s one thing to make predictions; it’s another to look back and see how those predictions fared.
How did I do last year in predicting events of 2011? I was hoping to be maybe 1 out of 7, since most of my predictions last year were of the doom-n-gloom variety. Sadly, I think I’m 4.5 out of 7 for a .642 batting average. Hall of Fame (Infamy?), here I come.
We’ll review my take on the predictions for 2011 after the jump.
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Say hello to Watson
Over on Facebook, in one of the real estate discussion groups I’m involved with, Loren Sanders posted the following:
I saw a documentary called “The Pit” about floor traders on the New York Board of Trade. It shows before and after they were bought out by an electronic trading company ICE. It is not an exact parallel to real estate but it shows clearly that progress waits for no one and no one (or company) is bigger than than market. That is my long winded lead in to: What are you doing now so your service will be relevant 2 years from now?
That sparked a bunch of discussion. The trailer for The Pit, by the way is here:
The movie is about the impact of technology on the Wall Street traders in the actual trading pits. Loren raises a really interesting question.
As it happens, I just contributed a chapter to Stefan Swanepoel’s upcoming report, speculating on the state of real estate in 2022. I’d call it science fiction, since ten years might as well be fifty years for trying to see where technology is headed. But I did find something while researching and thinking about that which is worth thinking about more.
Because of space limitations in print format, I couldn’t really get into all of the detail I’ve been thinking about. So I figured I’d think out loud here with you all.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The recently concluded NAR Convention in Anaheim that is. On the one hand, it was great to see old friends, make new friends, and engage in some wonderful conversations about everything from IDX Policy to branding to dating habits of college students. On the other hand, the entire convention was infused with an air of obstinate unreality, as if we all were jewel-bedecked revelers on The Titanic, dancing the night way sipping on champagne….
Based on hallway conversations, based on drunken whispers at industry parties, and based on what I’ve read and heard over the past few months, I believe there is an extinction-level event approaching the real estate industry. And all of the official groups, all of the powers that be, have failed to address it. So I will.
There is, I believe, a real chance that in the next three to six months, we will see the splintering of the foundation of the industry: the MLS and the Associations. The world that comes next, a world without the Multiple Listing Service, will be one filled with unintended consequences.
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The Syndication Hole
One of the most fun things about coming to a NAR event — whether Mid-Year or Annual — is the ability to connect previously unconnected dots and have an A-HA! moment. I had one such moment yesterday in the legal seminar put on by NAR. I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts, as the MLS Policy Committee meeting is tomorrow, and this particular issue should be discussed and adjudicated there.
I’ve written about the current MLS IDX Policy language before, noting that the key term is “control”. I believe that the latest version adds some clarification along the lines of “control means that you can comply with the IDX policy”. It’s a bit circular, but I get the idea.
Then yesterday, I’m attending the legal seminar where Gregg Larson presents to the assembled legal counsels for hundreds of Associations and MLS’s on the topic of syndication. And I have an A-HA moment.
Seems to me that there is a giant hole in the IDX policy, and it’s called syndication. We’re gonna need a far tighter definition of “control” to plug that particular hole.
Yesterday, your faithful correspondent was part of an interesting session held by the Council of MLS (CMLS) here in Anaheim on branding or certifying MLS data. The basic premise with which the meeting began was something like the following:
- The MLS has a strong brand for trustworthiness and accuracy in the consumer’s mind
- Consumers assume that all real estate data is MLS data
- Third party data is crap
- Therefore, the MLS should brand and/or certify MLS data
Various speakers presented various pieces of evidence supporting the above. And if you accept the premise above, then branding the MLS data in some way is a no-brainer. The two methods proposed are (a) brand the destination as “MLS Trusted”, and (b) certify the listing data itself as “MLS Certified”.
But I have my reasons for wondering about the assumptions.
