10/05/2022
Why can't the general public access all the info in an MLS?
That’s a great question. The TL/DR would be just what some of the other answers have stated: There is private information on the MLS that the public does not need access too. But there is a lot more to it than that, so I’ll give you a more in depth answer.
In the last decade or so there has been a growing trend of distrust by the general public towards any company or government agency that people think are hiding something from the public. When we see things like wiki leaks or individuals like Edward Snowden and other whistle blowers we champion them as heroes who are fighting the good fight, taking down the big guys. So it comes as no surprise to me that some people have the notion that for some reason they have a ‘Right” to access the MLS. That Realtors are dirty tricksters who are hiding important information from them, and if only the general public could access the MLS they wouldn’t need us anymore. There is the belief that we are battling to keep this information private for our own best interests, and that it’s unfair and we are dastardly crooks for doing so. When I hear these types of comments it shows me that the individual asking why they cant have access to the MLS lacks a fundamental understanding of what the MLS actually is and where it came from.
Lets step back a bit to get a better understanding. The Real Estate business used to be the wild wild west. Back in the day, there was no such thing as buyer representation. If you wanted to buy a house, you walked into a brokerage and were completely unaware that every agent in there was working for the seller and the seller alone. You may have thought they were helping you, but they were actually working against you. As far as what homes you could see, they only showed you their listings because that’s the only way they could make money. If you left their office and purchased a home listed by a neighboring brokerage they wouldn’t get a paycheck because again, there was no buyer representation. Only the listing brokerage was getting paid. So in the name of consumer protection we split things up into different forms of representation. You could now hire a brokerage to sell your home, hire a brokerage to help you buy a home, or hire an agent to simply do the paperwork without actually representing you. There is also dual agency, but that’s a conversation for another time. This way, the consumer always has someone advocating for their interests, and nobody (theoretically) is openly getting screwed.
So now we have buyer’s agents who’s job it is to help you buy a home and look out for your best interests. Well now we once again have a dilemma, because if we are working in our buyer’s best interests then we need to help them to purchase any home they want, not just the ones listed by our own brokerage. We need a way to see what other brokerages have listed as well. It’s in the best interest of both brokerages as well as the sellers and buyers if agents can have access to all the listings out there. So in comes the MLS.
Many people misunderstand what the MLS is. The MLS is nothing more than a group of local brokerages getting together to share pertinent information about the homes they have listed for sale with each other, in the interest of best serving our clients. That’s it. Did you know it’s not required to put a home on the MLS to sell it? It’s not a magical list of every single home out there for sale, and it’s far more localized than people understand. There are literally thousands of different MLS’s out there. Brokerages only have access to the MLS that they belong to as well, so even as a Realtor I cannot access the information on homes for sale two states away. I can’t even access some of the MLS’s in my own state because I don’t pay for it. I work in Minneapolis, and as such have access to the Northstar MLS, which covers the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and surrounding suburbs as well as a small bit of Wisconsin. But if someone lists a vacation home up north I may not see it. I also may not see certain farmlands or hunting lands that are listed with a specialized brokerage in the outer parts of the state who belongs to a different MLS. So this idea that “The MLS” is one big magical thing that holds all the information and we are somehow lobbying to withhold access to it from the general public is simply not true. It’s not secret information, it’s OUR information. It’s information about OUR clients and the homes WE are listing for sale. This information is given to us by homeowners who are entrusting us with things that are quite private, and are only doing so in the interest of selling their home. That’s it. The general public doesn’t have access to it because they have no reason to have access to it. They have no “right”. The sellers have a right to privacy, and so we share this information only with other professionals who have a legitimate need to see it. That’s it.
Part of the problem with why the public has such a misconception about the MLS is the existence of sites like Zillow or Redfin. These sights pay a small fee to each MLS in order to be able to pull a very small amount of data from the MLS and put it on their own sites. But they are only getting about 5% of the actual data on the MLS. To be honest though, that’s all they need. They get to take the listing photos, descriptions, and basic information about the home itself. But that’s it, and that’s all they need, and that’s all anyone in the general public needs to see. The rest is private financial information, and to some extent an aggregate of information that is technically public information like the names on deeds and whatnot. You can get that elsewhere, it’s just faster and easier with MLS access. And yet people seem to think there are homes out there that are on the MLS that they can’t see or that there is important information that we are withholding, and that’s simply not true. As a consumer casually looking at homes on the internet you actually can see everything that you need to see by using these other sites. There is nothing else on the MLS that would help you. If you are a serious buyer, then your agent can use the MLS to get you further information like the seller’s disclosures and things like that, but it would be ridiculous to have that type of information available to everyone everywhere. Because again, the general public has no “right” to see what appliances of mine are working or broken, what my mortgage payment or if I’ve refinanced my mortgage. The public has no “right” to see how old my windows and roof are or if I’ve gotten a divorce and my wife quit-claimed the deed to me and now I’ve got two mortgages and are underwater on them. The public can see everything they need to see, and the professionals can see everything they need to see. And once again, it’s not your information to begin with it’s OUR information on OUR websites that WE put out to share with other brokerages. It’s simply not for you.
So what would be the harm in giving the public access to the MLS? Here is a short list of things someone with a lack of morals could quite easily do with that access:
Figure out which people are divorced or are likely having financial troubles and target them. Figure out where single women are living alone so you can go and attack them. Figure out where elderly people are living alone so you can go and swindle them. Find out where their favorite celebrity or sports star lives and start to stalk them. Find out where registered s*x offenders live and harass them. Find out where your ex lives and go screw with them. Figure out which homes are owned by individuals of a certain race or religion based on the way their name sounds and go commit a hate crime against them. Find out where wealthy people live and go rob them. Match the last names on the deed with local school children and figure out where the kids live and go kidnap them. (okay maybe that one’s a stretch but you get the idea).
So in short, the general public ALREADY has access to ALL the information they need from the MLS in the form of third party websites like Zillow or Realtor.com. Nothing is being hidden form you. Nobody is trying to pull the wool over your eyes or screw you over. You simply have no legitimate reason to see any of the other information on the MLS and frankly you’re lucky to see any of it at all because it’s not your information to have.
By: Steve Nanninga
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