MLS is one of the first things you hear when dealing with buying or selling a property.MLS plays an important part in everyday life of any realtor and I, a realtor in Toronto, am no exception. If you’re interested why MLS is such a big deal, just read on.
The essentials of MLS
Multiply Listing Service is nothing less or more than a database of all property for sale, connecting two agents, one that represents the seller and the other representing the potential buyer. It is region-based.It holds all the available information about the property in question (the owner, its address, footage, number of bedrooms and so on). It also gives info on the local area (services, transportation, etc.) and other information that the owner wished to public.
The main difference between this database of property and lets say property listing in your local paper is quite crucial.MLS has never been fully available to the public, because it has been created by the realtors and for the realtors.What you see on your realtor’s website or in your local papers is just a portion of the information stored in the MLS database.
Shortly on the history
MLS was created some 50 years ago as listing sheets or cards, publishing all the property for sale in the region. It was usually updated twice a month.Real bound MLS books followed soon after.As a realtor, you had to pay a membership fee to access the information.The 70s made it a little bit more easier with the 3rd generation of the system: database stored in some central computer, which the realtors connected to by dumb terminals and phone lines.The personal computers and the Internet of the 90s brought about so far the last upgrade of the system, with web-based regional databases as we are using these days.
The fifth generation
Some people think that the current version of MLS isn’t sufficient enough.Particularly in the USA the discussing fellowship of realtors came up with the idea of another upgrade of the system to MLS 5.0, mainly by incorporating the functionalities of the ‘web 2.0′.The new version should provide information on all the properties nationwide, not just those currently on the market (parcel based) and should be to some degree accessible also for customers, vendors and developers.But currently there’s the 4.0 version of the system and at least in Canada it will stay in place for the time being.
So why should you be interested in MLS, being a customer?
Right now about 75% of all property is sold through the MLS or with its help.If you’re selling a property, you need plenty of coverage for it. Without MLS you never get as much of it as you need.The buyers benefit as well – because of MLS, their broker have a complete information about the current supply on the real estate market.Hence always ask your realtor if they have access to MLS of the region you have interest at.
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