Property listings are going to get wider distribution starting in Texas as a result of an announcement that ListHub.com, a provider of property listings and performance metrics in real estate, is expanding.
Move, Inc., owned by Realtor.com will expand their Real Estate Network (REN) syndication of property listings to consumer-facing websites and mobile apps operated by Multiple Listing Services (MLS), according to a release.
First up to participate in this new network will be the Houston Association of Realtors and their HAR.com site. HAR.com, the second-ranked real estate website in Texas, will now have listings from throughout the state with a beta version beginning at the end of this month. This better positions the local brokers to compete with large sites such as Zillow.com and Trulia.com.
“As an MLS, the accuracy and integrity of the content on our website is of top importance, and with ListHub, we know that the content will be 100 percent broker-authorized, and MLS-accurate,” Bob Hale, president and CEO of the Houston Association of Realtors, said in a release from PRNewswire. “The Real Estate Network satisfies the need for industry websites to compete fairly with third-party websites by offering broad exposure for listings across a wider geography of listing inventory and real estate brokers.”
The REN will now support a new category of publishers comprised of MLSs who operate consumer-facing real estate search websites. The core function of the REN is to provide listing content owners, such as brokers, with a voluntary option to advertise their listings on industry websites within a specific set of rules which serves as a framework for the value exchange between the owner of the content and the publisher of the website. The MLS REN websites will utilize a set of rules that will apply to MLS public websites displaying properties outside their own MLS market. Two key principles include: 1) all leads will be provided directly to the listing agent and only to the listing agent (or other lead recipient expressly indicated by the listing broker), and 2) properties are only authorized for consumer display on the public-facing site and shall not be included in the receiving MLS’s member listings database. Analytics for the traffic and leads generated by the MLS sites will be available for brokers and agents to gain insight into the value provided by MLS website advertising. The MLS REN Rules were formed based on input from a broad set of industry participants, including brokers and MLSs.
“HAR.com listings were viewed 37 million times in January,” said Dallas-based Virginia Cook, CEO of Virginia Cook,Realtors, in the release. “We are so pleased that we will soon be able to promote all our listings on HAR.com at no cost. Bravo from your Dallas fellow Realtors.”
“Although I am an Austin broker, I have had Turnquist Partners, Realtors listings on HAR.com for almost 5 years,” Michele Turnquist, owner of Turnquist Partners said in the release. “My leads are free, there are no competitors on my listings and they have been viewed more than 416,000 times. ”
“The Real Estate Network has always been designed for expansion of ListHub’s industry-friendly framework for managing data exchange between new categories of content owners and content publishers,” ListHub General Manager Luke Glass said in a release. “We are excited to reach a new milestone in this vision with the addition of MLSs as publishers.”
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