What is the MLS (Multiple Listing Service)? Why should you care? - YouTube

hello friends and welcome to whatever  computer or phone you're happening to  

see this on I'm Leigh Brown I'm a Realtor  with One Community Real Estate in Concord  

and I was sitting here in my living room  working on some presentations and looking at  

some ways that i can make real estate  better for my company and for my clients  

and I saw yet another news article come  across my screen talking about the problems  

that the Realtors are facing right now and it  wasn't actually anything flattering because  

if you have not been paying attention the alphabet  agencies in Washington DC and I'm leaving it at  

that because I'm sure they would like to subpoena  me and i kind of wish they would because I would  

love to give some information to the people  who are working in the bureaucracies in DC  

who want to dismantle real estate and y'all this  is not hyperbole this is picking up steam and  

this is what you need to understand about real  estate frankly it all revolves around the MLS  

now for years and years and years people join real  estate and they go and join the mls for no other  

reason than that they were told to their broker  said hey you're gonna have to go join the mls and  

so an agent pays several hundred dollars goes  through orientation gets a login and says hey  

I got access so they don't really understand  what it is which means that if you happen to be  

a normal person who's not a realtor watching the  stream hey friends then you might not know what it  

is either in fact when you hire a realtor you're  hiring them to put your house in the mls well let  

me break it down for you mls is a multiple listing  service do you know what it is though it's not  

just data it's not just bedrooms and bathrooms  and acreage and little remarks about a house and  

some photos which is what it looks like on the  surface we've got to look beyond the surface and  

frankly you and the public need to be educated and  you realtors this is your job the mls looks like  

data points and several years ago of course as the  internet has grown real estate people have gotten  

really savvy about it and when somebody trusts  us with representing them on selling a house  

they want us to put it out into the public as  many places as we can and that's what we have  

done that's a process called syndication and so  when syndication is rolling around out there your  

house when you choose to list it with me is going  to be found everywhere but that's not the mls all  

of these websites that carry your house are  not the mls that's the coolest thing about it  

when a realtor joins this system you know what  they're joining they're joining a system which  

is actually one of the purest free markets on the  planet and one of the last ones if we're honest  

about it because as a realtor when i belong to  the mls i have signed an agreement to publish  

my listings that my sellers have trusted me with  with the entire marketplace that means all members  

of that mls so yes they're going to see the  data points but the thing about the mls is this  

it is an agreement to cooperate with each other  think about this there's nothing else on the  

planet where professionals choose to cooperate  with each other in a fair and free market  

and then there's compensation that happens the  members agree to compensate one another in fact  

you'll find that really smart realtors would tell  you all day long they don't care for dual agency  

which is one agent representing buyer and seller  because that is going to wind up being a conflict  

of interest almost all of the time and don't  argue with me because i'm right on this and so  

in the mls i can let my seller's house be visible  to every buyer in a marketplace now why does this  

matter let me give you a couple of reasons why  this matters first of all statistically i as your  

realtor in the concord and charlotte market do not  have the time nor the bandwidth or the inclination  

to work with every buyer in the marketplace and  frankly if you're my seller client you don't want  

me to you would rather i focus on how i can  best represent your needs in this transaction  

i though would love to have every agent in this  marketplace who has a buyer that they are working  

with professionally bring that buyer to this  house it is a very transparent marketplace it  

is beautiful so i want you to think about this  if you're wondering why this is under attack  

you got me because the alphabet agency i'm just  going to call them voldemort because if i say i'm  

out loud apparently that means they're going to  spy on my devices thinks that there's something  

underhanded about a buyer being represented by an  agent going to someone's listing well let me tell  

y'all something the market that we're in right now  has actually exposed why you need a buyer agent  

more than you ever have almost every house when  it hits the market because we have just such a  

low level of inventory as compared to demand if we  have 16 offers on a listing which is what i had to  

deal with on monday if you are a buyer who doesn't  have an agent you don't really have a chance in  

the world of women because you won't have anybody  who can professionally update you on the market  

and give you advice on how to win and that is  really important when somebody's trying to get  

the perfect hedge against inflation which is  owning residential real estate if you are a renter  

i still love you because i'm an investor but rents  go up and they continue to escalate as the cost  

of owning things goes up if you own that property  and you have a 30-year mortgage your house payment  

will stay put how awesome is that and you know  what it's realtors who have worked there but took  

uses off to make sure that we make fair housing  come to life so that every neighbor and every zip  

code would know about the beauties of owning real  estate and it's not about realtors being used car  

salesmen it's about realtor understanding that  without home ownership a lot of folks will never  

ever ever get a leg up in life we live to give you  a leg up in life and so say you're that buyer who  

has worked your tail off got your credit score up  and you are qualified and ready to roll your agent  

then is going to look in the multiple listing  services to find you anything that's out there  

that might possibly be of interest to you without  the multiple listing service how will you find the  

house think about this if you remove the system  which is a fair marketplace how do you find it do  

you go to a thousand different websites well guess  what all of those websites are feeding off of  

the realtors multiple listing service but then  say you find it online how are you going to get  

information on it you ever tried to reach out to  amazon or spectrum or i don't know any big company  

for customer service good luck but you want to try  and call a realtor you just put on facebook i need  

a realtor you will have your phone ringing off the  hook and a million people at your beck and call  

looking to help you get into a property and why  because they're members of the multiple listing  

service and they can then go in and see what every  one of their colleagues has put on the market  

and they have a fair chance at it but i gotta  tell y'all something else that is wild about  

this that you might not know it didn't  always used to be in our mls marketplace  

it wasn't always free and fair in the past not  all members had access to everybody's listings  

that's right if you are new to real estate  say within the last 30 to 40 years okay look  

there's people that have been in this business  a long time and they are a wealth of knowledge  

they've been educating me i didn't know this and  i've been in real estate full time for 22 years  

when the mls was in existence 40 50 years ago  there was not a blanket offer of cooperation  

there was not blanket offer of compensation so  that any member would know they would be fairly  

and duly compensated for sharing and showing  that property and then bringing an offer that  

was acceptable to the seller you know who was  getting cut out women brokers were being cut out  

minority brokers were cut out and so you had a  system that was picking and choosing which agents  

could see which properties and which ones would  get compensated and that's crazy to me i just i  

don't understand it at all it seems to me that you  would always want to compensate and cooperate with  

everybody because life is easier that way but if  you go back a few decades it wasn't seen that way  

and one thing i absolutely love about realtors  when we see things that aren't an equal footing  

we dig in and roll our sleeves up and make  it better so yes we did not do things well  

40 and 50 years ago and then we had leaders in  the decades after that said we're going to fix  

it and they have and so now the mls is truly the  only fair and free marketplace where you can join  

as a member with a license and with your several  hundred dollars and now you can see every house on  

the market the government wants to dismantle this  the government wants to make the mls a regulated  

utility and it's not a utility it is an agreement  to cooperate and compensate people when they do  

their hard work now if you don't like the system  as we have it as realtors we're always welcome to  

suggestions about what system would make better  sense now as an instructor i've had the chance to  

travel all over the world i have had the chance to  be in countries where real estate is operated much  

differently than it is here in the best country on  earth the united states and i go to places such as  

spain where you do not need a license to sell real  estate you can just hop off the plane and sell a  

property and there's no mls but where you're going  to find one you will ride around town and look for  

signs on balconies that seems all right but it  does not seem like a really transparent and open  

marketplace you could go to places like argentina  where the government taxes at such a level  

that there's a white market in a blue market  and the numbers are all over the place and it  

all depends on what people think you could pay as  to how much you think the price is and then you're  

trying to find other properties on the market  because there's not an easy database to go see  

y'all it's crazy we have the best  system on earth and as realtors  

i'm telling you the legal teams at the national  association of realtors are doing their level best  

to educate the bureaucrats and stop them from  ruining real estate you're going to have to do  

your piece too if you're a realtor and you see  this you need to tell your clients that the mls  

is a system whereby we get to cooperate with  all members and compensate as our business model  

determines and also that mls is our opportunity  to advertise our seller's property to all agents  

in the marketplace and we don't advertise it  to certain agents in this firm and that firm  

and we don't advertise it to agents of this gender  and that gender and this color in that color  

we advertise our listings to all members  of the mls and then it gets put all over  

the internet so that buyers of every ilk can  find it and then call their agent and get some  

professional guidance and how to win it that's  what the mls is and why do you have to care  

because friends i'm going to tell you one more  time the alphabet agencies want to dismantle this  

they want to get rid of buyer agents the people  who look out to protect you as consumer watchdogs  

well when i met those people i don't know that  they've bought a house in the last 35 or 40 years  

their information is not nearly as current as your  local realtor that you love and cherish so when  

you have questions or you see these nasty articles  rolling around the internet before you give any  

credence to it call your local realtor ask them  what they see on the ground and ask them what  

they're going to do to sell your house because the  most powerful marketing any realtor can ever do is  

to advertise your property to other professionals  in the marketplace because that's going to mean  

you are seen by all of the people who have buyers  and they're going to do their level best to bring  

you a real offer and friends this matters i will  tell you that if we lose our system and our free  

marketplace you're going to lose a lot of realtors  and if you lose realtors that might sound okay  

because they're not all created equal and i'm  not disputing that point i will say that there  

are realtors who need to have the opportunity to  get better educated and maybe if you know one of  

them you should point them to a program such  as commitment to excellence where they can get  

better but in the meantime we have to remember  that realtors are everywhere we have almost 1.6  

million realtors in the country you know what that  means we have realtors in every zip code and we're  

serving every price point and every neighbor we  serve everything from single rides to condos to  

waterfront luxury houses and only in the multiple  listing service can every single realtor log in  

and see all of those properties from the single  wise to the condos to the waterfront luxury  

and that means you as a consumer have access to  the entire marketplace it is efficient it is fair  

and it is transparent and i am so proud to be a  realtor and i'm so proud to serve clients every  

single day in figuring out what they can do to  have their piece of the american dream and they  

get to define what that american dream looks like  and my job is to help them navigate it when you  

look at systems that want to be dismantling us and  agencies that don't like realtors you have to ask  

yourself why perhaps those bureaucracies don't  like us because we are 1.6 million entrepreneurs  

in every zip code and working with every neighbor  and we vote maybe they want to dismantle us  

because we are just too strong well that means we  have to get stronger friends and this means you  

have to be a better advocate for what you do stand  tall stand proud define what we are doing make  

sure that every buyer and seller in the public  with whom you have contact make sure that they  

know that we are proud to belong to a system  that is absolutely transparent fair and free  

and that we are making sure that realtors are able  to all have access to the marketplace and thereby  

their buyers and we do not want to go backwards  to a system where people get to pick and choose  

with whom they work where buyers don't have access  to all the properties and we refuse to take any  

steps backward in fair housing because if the  mls is attacked by these bureaucrats i want you  

to understand this it is your workforce housing  and those who are seeking their first property  

which are going to be the most impacted because  they don't have bucket loads of cash like the top  

one percent do because let's be honest the top one  percent can work their way around any system and  

we're delighted to help those folks too but we  all know that the neighbors that need our help  

the most are at the lower end of the socioeconomic  scale quite often and it's real estate that helps  

them take a rung up and i'll be john brown if  i'm going to see our system which has done more  

to promote fair housing than anything else on  the planet get taken down you friends better  

fight the good fight too and when you see these  articles fight back write letters to the editor  

make sure that you put in the comments section  that we as realtors do not scam or hurt the public  

we are transparent open and fair and we live  to make sure that real estate goes on and that  

in america we protect private property rights and  we're not stopping and not letting anybody get in  

our way of protecting our neighbors rights friends  we have work to do if you have questions about any  

of this you need more information on the MLS and  how to know if your house is listed on it if you  

need help finding a Realtor if you need help in  concord and you want me to be your Realtor all of  

those things hit me up in the comments send me a  message most importantly though subscribe to this  

channel tell a friend hit share hit bookmark watch  it again because we're going to have to talk about  

these things right out loud this is not up to  lawyers this is up to us I'll see you next time.