What Is the Meaning of the MLS Numbers?

Real estate brokers colaborate to find their best deal.

When talking real estate, the multiple listing search (MLS) is a tool to help listing agents find selling agents working with buyers to help sell their clients' homes.

Order

Without the collaborative incentive of the existing MLS, brokers would create their own separate systems of cooperation, fragmenting rather than consolidating property information, according to the national Association of Realtors.

Considerations

Although there is not an official MLS, in North America, many agents use the Real Estate Transaction Standard. The RETS contains databases controlled by realtors.

Function

The listing broker represents the seller and has the property listed for sale. Usually another broker, the selling agent, secures an offer to purchase the property. In such cases, the brokers cooperate and the commission is split between the two companies.

Misconceptions

Not all proprieties are listed in the MLS. For instance, someone selling his or her own property cannot generally put a listing directly into the MLS.

Potential

The concept of the MLS went global in 2008 when Proxio Pro designed a website to create a network of regional, national and international levels in real estate.

The International Consortium of Real Estate Associations (ICREA) and Proxio partnered to provide a Global Listing and Referral Platform on ICREA's website WorldProperties.com in 2009. The platform application is expected to serve 1.7 million agent and broker members around the world belonging to any of more than 40 leading national and regional real estate associations affiliated with ICREA.

The site is expected to go live by the end of first quarter of 2010.

References

• MLS
• RETS

Resources

• listing broker