NYC Flirts with Open Listings Service (Sort Of)

1.

Wrong! the NYC real estate racket is behind the rest of the country by 40 years, not 25!

The inefficient entirely bullshit rental broker fee crap that other major cities manage to live without might soon be gone! (if Chicago and DC and LA and Philly and SF and on and on Landlords can go without this bullshit system, i gotta believe NYC landlords can too!).

What's it all mean? You worthless slugs have to get real jobs. Start practicing now by making my double mocha latte.

2.

While were at it can we please buy wine & liquor in the grocery store 7 days a week? I know New Yorkers are a puritanical bunch, but come on now...

3.

rebny trails the nation. there already is an mls service in manhattan run by the manhattan association of realtors. this is just a plot for rebny to make money. the listing "portal" is $3000 for small firms $7500 for large firms and it is manditory for all firms to join. let's see with 300 or more firms that equals...?

4.

I blogged about this yesterday, though I hadn't thought about the REBNY REVenue angle (good point anonBroker; I will add a link to this thread), with these first-blush comments:

I hope REBNY will make more of an effort to make sure the information is both “accurate and current”. I frequently hear agents complain about information shared through the REBNY Listing Service that is neither accurate nor current.

This should NOT be confused with the classic Multiple Listing Services that serve brokers in the rest of America, as this will be for current listings only. REBNY firms do not share closed sale information with each other, though the change in NYS law this year means that coop sales data will dribble into the public as the city’s data base spits it out. It remains to be seen how much information that agents share even about current listings will be in this public web portal.

The 30+ members of the Manhattan Association of Realtors® (probably all of whom are also REBNY members) already maintain a Manhattan Multiple Listing Service that provides public access to member firms’ listings (about 15% of the market) and even have an Internet Data Exchange system (IDX, like out there in America) in which member firm listings appear on each other’s websites directly. MANAR firms also share closed sale information with each other immediately. My understanding is that MANAR was formed, in part, because REBNY did not want to share more than its member firms were already sharing. So the politics of this will be something to ponder over the coming days.

What will the New York Times think? Currently, NYTimes.com is the closest thing there is to a public “web portal” for listings. (NYTimes.com is notorious for running ads for properties that do not exist, as well as ads for properties that have long since gone into contract or closed.) I have been told that the Times was able to charge the big firms to create that website at the Times And – obviously – it charges to have listings put up there. Will this kill NYTimes.com?

Cynics might wonder whether there is any connection between this proposed web portal (why announce six months in advance??) and the inquiries by the federal Department of Justice into Manhattan real estate practices.

No word on whether there will be a REBstimate tool, but don’t count on it.