Five takeaways from Tuesday’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Forum

Illinois REALTORS® who tuned in to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Forum Tuesday afternoon heard a panel discussion and two presentations.

The following are five takeaways from the forum:

• The increase in people working from home since the COVID-19 pandemic struck makes it important for Multiple Listing Service organizations to capture data so consumers looking for properties know what can accommodate their lifestyle, such as home offices, home gyms and home classrooms;
• Consumers are more interested in the best solutions for faster and more reliable internet access to meet their new needs;
• An increasing number of consumers are more interested in buying homes sight unseen, instead using virtual tours and virtual floor plans;
• MLS organizations are striving for “interoperability” in electronic services, so that programs like DocuSign and Dotloop can communicate easily with each other, just like gmail and yahoo users can exchange email messages;
• Members can use data available in their MLSs to assist in making decisions in their marketing and in their overall business strategy.

Expert speakers at the forum included: President and CEO of Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) Rebecca Jensen, CEO of Council of MLS Denee Evans Hofer, RESO CEO Sam DeBord, MRED Chief Technology Officer Chris Haran and NAR Senior Economist and Director of Housing & Commercial Research Scholastica (Gay) Cororaton.

Get full transcript.