Real estate agents have an unfair advantage when home sellers are shut out of the MLS

From Inman News:

The New Jersey Multiple Listing Service, a regional MLS in Northern New Jersey that is owned and operated by two local Realtor organizations, has withdrawn a policy that prevented some property listings from reaching Realtor.com and several other home-search Web sites.

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National Association of Realtors general counsel Laurie Janik announced earlier this year that 14 separate government investigations had been launched over MLS policies that prevent some property listings information from being publicly displayed on some public Web sites. The Realtors Association of Northeast Wisconsin MLS changed its restrictions relating to the public display of some property listings in late August after an FTC investigation.

The Northern New England Real Estate Network and Austin Board of Realtors in Texas also lifted similar restrictions, and both of these groups announced agreements with the FTC in response to investigations.

In March 2005, the New Jersey MLS announced in a newsletter that "exclusive agency" property listings would no longer be sent to public home-search Web sites, including NJMLS.com and Realtor.com, as of April 1, 2005.

In exclusive agency listing agreements, home sellers are not obligated to pay their agent if they locate a buyer on their own, and sellers can actively market their own properties. The MLS did not place similar restrictions on the more common "exclusive right to sell" property-listing agreement, which provides that a seller must pay the agent or broker who listed the property even if the seller personally located the buyer for the property.

What’s going on with the MLS? Some realtors don’t like exclusive agency listing agreements so there is a natural prejudice in certain circles against fair trade. IHS Realty believes you have a right to enter into any type of agreement you feel comfortable with - with a real estate agent or anyone else. If you have an exclusive agency listing agreement and you want to list your house for sale through a flat fee MLS service, we’ll be glad to help. We just want you to sell your house and increase your gains.

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