Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Southeast Minnesota REALTORS joins NorthstarMLS

Second Largest MLS in Minnesota to Join NorthstarMLS

“SEMR worked with real estate industry consultant Matt Cohen, Clareity Consulting, to help its MLS and Association leadership evaluate strategic options, to research and provide recommendations for addressing concerns, to help educate and collect feedback from broker participants, to engage with NorthstarMLS, and to create a communications plan which will be executed as the MLS operations merge.

“We are pleased to welcome SEMR as a shareholder,” said NorthstarMLS CEO John Mosey. “NorthstarMLS is implementing changes to better accommodate SEMR members’ needs and we expect these will make our service even better for our current customers. We hope that other associations in our multi-state market region can see how committed we are about collaborating to create a more efficient marketplace for our brokers and agents and continue to be open to further dialog on MLS cooperation in any form.”

SEMR serves over 11 counties in Minnesota. Nice win for both groups. Also cool to see a shout out for Matt Cohen in the press release.

5 MLS Providers launch new venture, MLS Aligned.

MLS Aligned: Five Leading MLSs Launch a Single Platform to Solve Data Problems in the Real Estate Industry

We are proud to announce the launch of MLS Aligned, LLC, a new company created to address the data efficiency problems facing multiple listing services. Formed and owned by 5 of the most innovative MLS organizations, with more expected to join, MLS Aligned has developed and launched a functioning platform for tools and software that will solve many of the pain points currently experienced by brokers, real estate product vendors, and multiple listing services.

ARMLS (serving Arizona), MetroMLS (serving Wisconsin), MLSListings (serving Silicon Valley), RMLS (serving Oregon), and UtahRealEstate.com (serving Utah) came together with the idea to change how data is distributed and to offer a platform for their individually built products. The platform, which is operational and has been validated by a large national vendor, uses a proprietary method to manage and distribute data without needless replication.

They have set up a website at MLSAligned.com which includes a brief whitepaper. I have to say I’m intrigued, but still have lots of questions about this “sharing but not sharing” concept.

When you look at BrightMLS, MLS Grid, Front End of Choice, ARMLS-MetroMLS, and now MLS Aligned you can see a lot of innovation in the MLS space. But I also worry that in an industry that is already fragmented we might even further separating ourselves. That being said it good to see that many MLS Execs are not standing still. I think its important to get as many ideas out there and flesh them out. Looking forward to hearing more about MLS Aligned and these other initiatives at the CMLS Conference next week.

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