MLS Shares More Listings Online; Federal Trade Commission Says Group Can't Exclude Lower-Commission Homes

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

America's premier "home for sale" marketing venue is poised to give consumers a bigger peek into its private databanks.

Multiple Listing Service, a national network of 850 local operations created by and for the trademarked group Realtors, is under a new directive: Share more information. The National Association of Realtors on Nov. 17 announced a new policy to require that discount fare be included in the "for sale" listings transmitted to public Web sites.

"All listings will now go into the MLS data feeds, with one narrow exception - sellers who reveal their address and post a FSBO (For Sale By Owner) sign. Those, you can still exclude," said Laurie Janik, general counsel for the trade group based in Washington, D.C.

Her organization used to let MLS operators decide how to handle "exclusive agency listings," which enable sellers to cut realty commissions by finding their own buyers. That practice of culling lower-commission properties before putting everything else on public Web sites drew fire this year from the Federal Trade Commission as an anti-trust practice.

Targeted as test cases, a half-dozen MLS operators, including two in Wisconsin, agreed this fall to stop excising exclusive agency listings from data feeds. Federal Trade Commission lawyers warned, in announcing the settlements, that the regulatory push for a more open marketplace would continue.

"I believe this will satisfy their concerns," Janik said.

The policy shift, which took effect immediately, will boost the numbers in the 3.1 million-listing site Realtor.com by about 1% in metro Milwaukee but an unknown amount nationwide.

Exclusive agency listings will now also appear in sites run by MLS operators and those operated by brokers who have agreed to publicize other brokers' listings. In Wisconsin, the two chief MLS sites are wihomes.com and wisconsinhomes.com.

Which means prices are really lower,right now,than they seem.