MLS Real Estate & Listings Blog

The National Association of Realtors has plans to call nine witnesses to testify in court if an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department proceeds to trial, and may call upon an additional list of 14 witnesses.

A preliminary live trial witness list, produced by the National Association of Realtors in a Feb. 14 court document, includes a list of "will call" witnesses and a separate category of "may call" witnesses.  more…

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Some brokers and MLSs are rushing to distribute property information for display on popular third-party real estate Web sites, and a paper released this week by a Minneapolis law firm encourages a thorough review and negotiation of terms to help ensure that the deals properly protect industry interests.

Brian Larson, a Minneapolis lawyer who works with dozens of Realtor associations and multiple listing services, said the paper was prompted by an industry trend to broaden online distribution channels for property information by working with a range of Web sites.  more…

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Realogy Corp. officials on Monday detailed continued plans to cut costs through office consolidations and other actions in response to the reeling real estate market.

After consolidating about 67 company-owned brokerage offices in 2007, Realogy has plans to consolidate or reduce in size an additional 70 company-owned office locations during the first two quarters of this year, said Richard A. Smith, company president and CEO, during an earnings conference call Monday.  more…

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Real estate brokerage and franchise company Realogy Corp. reported a $797 million net loss in 2007 for the period since its April 10 acquisition by an affiliate of private equity firm Apollo Management LP.

The company also reported a $44 million net loss for the period from Jan. 1, 2007, through April 9, 2007. That compares with net income of $365 million in 2006 and net income of $627 million in 2005.  more…

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Seattle-based Zillow.com scored its first partnership with a multiple listing service to feed for-sale property information to the national real estate site.

MLS Property Information Network, a privately owned MLS serving the New England area, will begin feeding listings to Zillow on a daily basis, the companies announced today.

MLS PIN has about 30,000 participants, and the organization manages a database of approximately 60,000 homes for sale.  more…

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Real estate franchise network Prudential Real Estate Affiliates Inc. and media company Homes & Land have announced agreements to distribute property listings information for display at third-party online real estate sites.

Homes & Land, which publishes several print magazines and operates the HomesAndLand.com Web site, which targets affluent home buyers, announced an agreement to feed all of the HomesAndLand.com property listings to real estate marketing and valuation site Zillow.com.  more…

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Just a few months after launching, HGTV’s FrontDoor.com is steadily adding big-brand partnerships with real estate brokerage heavy hitters.

The latest partnership announced today is with Prudential Real Estate Affiliates and will enable FrontDoor to display some 140,000 for-sale properties at its site, which already includes listings from Realogy and Leading Real Estate Companies of the World.  more…

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Consumers appreciate public property-search Web sites set up by multiple listing services, though such sites remain a divisive issue for industry professionals, according to a report released today by WAV Group, a real estate consulting company.

The "MLS Consumer Website Effectiveness Study" highlighted HAR.com, a popular real estate search site created by the Houston Association of Realtors, and gathered consumer and Realtor input about public MLS sites.  more…

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A lawsuit filed against a New York City real estate trade association and several major brokerage companies is in the process of settling, according to court documents filed this week.  more…

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Busloads of home buyers are hopping aboard the foreclosure bandwagon in search of bargains, and real estate agents and brokers are supplying the wheels and deals in markets across the country.

Ruth and John Ahlbrand, who own and manage RE/MAX Central, a Las Vegas brokerage company, bought a 40-seat luxury coach and wrapped it with advertising that features their TourVegasHomes.com Web site and the company’s phone number.  more…

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