Unfortunately Joel Burslem may be correct in calling NAR’s new project, Realtors Property Resource, LLC (RPR), “the most important technology story of the last few years”. I believe the Real Estate industry has just shot itself in the other knee. WHY:
What good is greater access to property provided by RPR and located in a market “outside REALTORS” have no local knowledge of, except for them to create opportunities for errorently providing misinformation to the buyer, fostering distrust, which will lower the REALTOR’s professional status in the public’s eye and even put into question the need for a REALTOR!
I know NAR will be saying: “listing information will not be disseminated to third party marketing websites unless permitted by the broker of the listing.”
Unfortunately, the REALTORS are so desperate for an offer for their Sellers in our current market environment; they will ask their Sellers what they want to do? Do the Sellers care about the process we REALTORS go through or our legal liability– NO, so they will approve this or sue their REALTOR for not offering this choice.
When our local MLS sold RE INFOLINK our data base of Real Estate history (yes I was a REALTOR when this occurred). RE INFOLINK didn’t say they were going to allow anybody who wanted to have access to get it, but now we pay them and they make more money selling advertisements on the public sites they sold the information too.
Unfortunately, in the practical application of this new service by RPR, I see the same thing happening with Internet Real Estate companies offers kickbacks if a consumer allows the “outside REALTOR” to be the selling agent. I am listening to my fellow agents who are doing both sides of the transaction work on their escrows now, but they are sure something is amiss, although they can’t prove the “outside REALTOR” kickbacks the buyers appear to be getting back.
So, let’s see – the Listing Agent does all the work and then gets sued with the Selling Agent for the Selling Agents not meeting their fiduciary duty to the buyer who wasn’t properly informed about some well known local issue or… What am I missing!!!
NAR should be spending our money on advertising to inform and insure the consumer is reminded “all Real Estate is LOCAL”. That it takes a local Real Estate specialist (REALTOR) to understand and present the local issues affecting the value and livability of a particular home site. This would insure the consumer is not just relying on the basic home information found on a web search.

ISN”T THAT WHY LOCAL MLS ASSOCIATIONS CAME INTO EXISTENCE!!!

Even our own association has jumped on board, with “premium” service charges on Realtor.com. I’m a big fan of Open Source. I write about using Open Source in Real-Estate all the time. But making this open source will just create more ways to fleece the membership with our own tools and data.