Re: Incorporating MLS listings into site

Good Afternoon,

I am currently a 2nd level support technican working for the local MLS
company of San Diego County, SD, CA, www.sandicor.com.

The program you are referring to is definitely IDX, Internet Data Exchange.
It is an official program that was mandated to be in place for every single
MLS company that belongs to NAR (national association of realtors,
www.realtor.com) across the United States by Jan 1, 2002.  Many of the
smaller MLS companies haven't bothered doing it, but most of them have.

There are two different programs currently in place.  One is where you get
access to the entire MLS's database in an ftp access.  You do a once daily
download, and then incorporate that data into whatever format you wish to
design for your client.  This ftp access give the Web designers the most
flexibility for individuality, and it is what most of the big offices and
players use.

The second option is called Smart Framing.  The MLS company designs an
interface that allows anyone to do seaches of the MLS data base in a real
time situation. The kicker is that you can only "frame" this into your own
website. You have some color choices, and font sizes, etc. but basically,
the format is the same for anyone who frames the site. This is the easiest
and most up-to-date information a realtor can offer to his potential
clients, but the agent has the least control over how it looks.

IDX has been around for over 2-1/2 years, and Sandicor has offered the ftp
access for a long time, but mostly the Big Brokers took advantage of it as
they are the ones who had the websites first. Now that every single agent
wants to and usually has their own website, they all want to offer this live
search for their clients.  The IDX program is currently free for our users,
but theSmart Framing option has a small cost due to our having to run the
website/webpages behind the scenes, and provide the bandwidth, etc.

I hope this explains IDX to everyone.  I can say that I am fairly certain if
you are linking to the mls listings or to other agents listing on your
agent's webpage without permission, you are very much in violation and stand
the chance of this agent losing his active status and connection to the MLS.
It is a major violation of being inactived and charged a fine of $500 for
any of our agents who give their agent ID and password to anyone else, even
another realtor. And we catch them and fine them regularly, believe it or
not. The data that is accumulated and mainted by MLS companies is sacred and
very private, and is highly protected.

One other thing.  You must make sure you have an approved disclaimer on any
site using IDX or Smart Framing that states these listings are not
necessarily the property of the agent whose site you are visiting.  It is
very illegal to claim a listing to be yours when it isn't. And trust me,
real estate agents are extremely protective of their listings and their
contacts and they "police" all of the MLS listings looking for violations to
turn into the Rules Department.

Have a great day !!
phyllis  :)
www.photomagnets4u.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "custom" <custom(at)desktoppub.com>
To: "HWG Techniques list" <hwg-techniques(at)mail.hwg.org>
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2003 11:29 AM
Subject: Incorporating MLS listings into site


> My real estate client wants to be able to incorporate the MLS into their
> site. They've been "told by someone" that "there's a way to do it." -- 
> they seemed to indicate that it would be possible to pull in the MLS
> search engine into a framed site.
>
> Has anyone ever done this? Where should I start looking? I tried to find
> the MLS, but all I get are a bunch of individual real estate sites that
> appear to have this ability, but no link to the MLS itself...
>
> Thanks,
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> Custom Communications
> Web site design
> 145 Newbury St., 3rd Floor
> Portland, ME 04101
> (207) 771-5510
> www.desktoppub.com
>

HWG hwg-techniques mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA