A data-sharing project from the nation’s largest multiple listing service is growing.
California Regional MLS, which services more than 73,000 real estate professionals, and the Ventura County Regional Data Share, which has about 4,500 subscribers, have signed an agreement to import listing data directly from each other’s systems.
VCRDS is the latest MLS to participate in an initiative CRMLS launched last year to ink data-share deals directly with MLSs throughout California with the goal of building a statewide MLS in mind.
“CRMLS is making great strides in proactively delivering data throughout the state of California via our own technology in a well-organized and cost effective manner,” said Art Carter, CEO of CRMLS, in a statement.
“The addition of VCRDS’s data will definitely strengthen this initiative and bring us closer to completing the aggregation of listings in Southern California, allowing real estate professionals to advance their business.”
VCRDS previously declined California Regional MLS’s offer to data share. Dennis Goldstein, president of the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors, one of the two associations that operates VCRDS, said VCRDS had polled its subscribers and found “very limited interest in areas served by” California Regional MLS.
“However, after a period of time we met with our broker/participants who were much more interested in information provided by developing a data share agreement with CRMLS,” VCRDS said in an emailed statement.
“With the data share agreement with CRMLS we feel that we are responding to the needs and desires of our broker/participants.”
As part of the agreement, the two MLSs’ combined listing data will appear on their members’ agent and broker Internet data exchance (IDX) websites. VCRDS has not yet signed an addendum to the agreement allowing its data to appear on CRMLS’s public-facing MLS website homeseekers.com and to be part of syndication feeds CRMLS sends to third-party portals.
San Dimas-based CRMLS signed its first direct data-share deal with Sunnyvale-based MLSListings Inc. in April, in which each agreed to share MLS listing data and offer their combined listings to potential buyers and sellers on their public websites.
At the time, Carter said the arrangement was the next best thing short of a statewide MLS — a goal CRMLS has pursued under a variety of arrangements with associations and MLSs.
In August, CRMLS withdrew from California Real Estate Technology Services Inc., or CARETS, a data-sharing and standardization effort that went live in 2008. CRMLS said improved in-house technology meant CRMLS was now able to provide data efficiently and cost effectively throughout California without CARETS as a “middleman.”
Following its withdrawal from CARETS, CRMLS signed direct data-share agreements with:
- The Combined Los Angeles/Westside MLS (The MLS/CLAW)
- CRISNet MLS covering the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita Valley areas
- iTech MLS covering the Glendale and Pasadena area
- California Desert Association of Realtors
- Palm Springs Regional MLS (serviced by The MLS)
And now, CRMLS has inked a direct data-share agreement with Ventura County Regional Data Share, which continues to belong to CARETS along with CLAW, CRISNet, iTech MLS, and Palm Springs Regional.
VCRDS and CRMLS will begin to exchange reciprocal passwords into each other’s systems early this month and will begin to import each other’s data sometime this quarter.
In September, Carter said CRMLS had a direct data-share deal with San Diego-based Sandicor Inc. in the works. CRMLS said today that it had not yet signed an agreement with Sandicor.
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