The three MLSs in the San Francisco East Bay Area today announced they are participating with major MLSs in Northern California in a program to exchange MLS data. The Bay East Association of REALTORS® MLS, the Contra Costa Association of REALTORS® MLS and East Bay Regional Data, Inc will be sharing MLS listing data with MLSListings Inc and with Quattro (an existing data sharing initiative that includes San Francisco Association of REALTORS® [SFAR], Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. [BAREIS MLS®] and MetroList Services, Inc. [Metrolist®]). Together, these seven MLSs represent 70,000 real estate brokers and agents from 21 counties in Northern California.
The cooperative agreement takes advantage of the unique character and rich data found in each participating MLS. Real estate practitioners throughout this large area will be able to access any one of the MLS systems, enabling them to find property information across multiple market areas regardless of geographic boundaries. In addition to full reciprocal MLS access for users, the agreement allows each participating MLS to maintain separate databases that aggregate the data from all seven MLSs. Users who prefer to see all of the data in a single location can use one of the aggregated databases. They will no longer have to pay additional fees to access other MLSs. Brokers who maintain proprietary software systems for use by their agents will also benefit from the new data share. They will be able to download data from all of participating MLS’s databases in a single data stream instead of downloading data from each MLS individually.
