An American realtor who once predicted his company would have 5,000 UK estate agents working under its banner is now saying the industry in this country would do better if it backed a multi-listing system.
The MLS in the United States operates across 800 or so platforms on which realtors share property listings and invite local rivals to cooperate on sales in return for shared fees.
Supporters of MLS say vendors benefit by increased exposure and agents benefit by having a wider source of potential income.
Now Matt Fetick - who once operated the UK franchise of the US-led Keller Williams agency - says UK agents would sell 90 per cent of the homes they listed if they followed a multi-listing system. This would contrast with the 50 per cent they sell under the traditional UK system.
Fetick’s current US Keller Williams operations in Delaware and Maryland sold property worth $2 billion last year; back in early 2017 he told Estate Agent Today that he planned to open 50 market centres in this country under the KW banner, each of which would employ around 100 agents - making a 5,000-agent total.
That has not yet come to pass but in a recent interview about MLS he says of the UK: “Put me and our model up against any experienced agent over there. I’ll jump on the next plane and I guarantee I’ll win any instruction.”
The MLS system is currently being endorsed by a new property portal, OpenBrix, and the PropTech platform Agent Hub; in recent years it was also supported by the former Independent Network of Estate Agents.
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Will he need to quarantine for 14 days when he gets off the plane?
What a load of twaddle this article is.
Now that private citizens may list for FREE on about 5 major web portals no need for EA to be involved in any sale process of a vendor.
EA wake up your monopoly on the major web portals has been broken by
free.co.uk
For those homeowners who are confident to list themselves for free then why would they bother using expensive EA!?
EA have been able to maintain their stranglehold on listing because only they were permitted to list on the major web portals.
Now others may list and they are offering free listing to private citizens.
The times they are a changing!
Thanks for the educated response Paul, but this is not an article about free listings, or any so called monopolies, really? When are people going to realise the property world now, and always will work better with an qualified agent involved.
The point which Matt (KW) is missing, is that an MLS is a sharing platform, so if UK agents did decide to join up or create an MLS, you will be splitting any commission received with the agent bringing you the buyer, or vice versa, so the only way to may this work would be to increase commission (which I am sure Paul will not like at all, as he can now sell for free!)
So UK agents may well sell 90% vs 50% of their present stock, but they will do so with 50% commission, so it just wont work out.
MLS' tend to work best in areas where people buy secondary homes - the Med countries, in particular Spain, where agents cover large areas of coastline and market to a worldwide audience, hence using an MLS with 1000 other collaborating agents gives you a much greater chance of selling your properties...
Agents are not qualified.
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