From Inman News Features
Just when the nation’s real estate brokers had geared up to tap what promised to be a revolution in real estate technology — Internet Data Exchange (IDX) — many of their competitors already were moving ahead to the next big thing.
That is, the Virtual Office Web site or VOW, which allows an individual real estate broker to display all for-sale home listings and the complete information about those listings in an online format on a Web site.
VOWs differs from IDX in that while IDX gives individual brokers the choice of withholding their listings from the system by opting in or opting out, depending on the MLS’s setup, VOWs display all of the listing data, all the time—but only for Web site visitors who register online to view the information.
Such online real estate brokerages as eRealty and zipRealty have used VOWs for years to display for-sale home listings. But so-called traditional real estate brokerages only recently have begun testing VOWs for themselves.
So far, they like what they see.
Most alluring about VOWs is the fact that those using them can ignore—at least for now — the wishes of brokers who don’t want their for-sale listings displayed on other brokers’ Web sites. That’s because VOWs aren’t governed by MLS opt-in or opt-out IDX rules.
VOWs turn Web surfers into prospective home-buying customers before giving them access to the listing information by having them to complete an online registration process that typically requires an e-mail address, telephone number and/or physical address.
VOWs are ruffling feathers at the National Association of Realtors, which last summer issued an implementation guide that defined VOWs as Web sites that include active listings of other MLS brokers who may or may not participate in IDX, display listings to qualified buyers interested in the listings and prevent unqualified general access to the information through a password barrier.
“This model is fundamentally analogous to the one relied on by MLS participants for many years,” according to the NAR guide. “When a consumer physically visits an MLS participant’s office, the consumer is shown listings of other MLS participants. The difference is the medium: the participant’s virtual office Web site rather than printed copies of listings handed (or faxed or mailed) to potential purchasers.”
NAR has watched these Web sites grow up over the last year and now is giving them a closer look.
The association in March formed the Internet Marketing Workgroup, also known as the VOW Workgroup, to review its IDX policies as they relate to VOWs. The result was a proposal that more tightly defines how listings data can be displayed on the Internet. The workgroup expects NAR to approve its policy changes at the association’s November meetings.
The workgroup in its proposal stated that brokers are developing VOWs “in an effort to distinguish their Internet display of real property listings from the display governed by MLS IDX policies.”
A broker who opts out of IDX doesn’t have the option of pulling out of a VOW because the listing feed going to the VOW is the entire MLS. As a result, some VOW operators display all of the data fields available in the MLS, including information intended only for other brokers, such as showing instructions or broker-to-broker offers of compensation.
The upswing in VOW use is raising questions not only at NAR, but also at the nation’s brokerages, especially those that opted out of IDX only to find all listings, all the time on a competitor’s VOW.