The Colorado Real Estate Commission Position 21 (CP-21) was officially updated in early April to include Listing Syndication as a suggested topic within office policy manuals. CP-21 is a long standing position statement that covers a variety of items for inclusion in office policy manuals such as handling earnest money, contract review and, as of April 7th, listing syndication.
The timing is perfect considering the recent changes between listing syndication giant, Listhub, and consumer portals, Zillow and Trulia. As of April 7th, Listhub and Zillow Group ended their contract with one another, leaving brokers and agents wondering how their listings would be sent to consumer portals. To help our customers, IRES developed an agreement with Zillow Group directly and added a preference option on our MLS that allows Managing Brokers to choose whether or not to syndicate their listings through the MLS.
Increased marketing exposure for listings can be beneficial but may also come at a cost. Duplicate listings, lag time on listing changes, unauthorized use, unfavorable Terms of Use and re-syndication have become increasingly problematic. These issues, combined with general confusion of how listings are sent to third parties, may cause Managing Brokers to struggle with forming an office policy regarding how, when and where listings should be displayed. In turn, agents are often unsure how to answer consumer questions regarding marketing properties on third party sites.
Lauren Hansen, CEO of IRES, presented information to the Colorado Real Estate Commissioners to encourage listing syndication dialogue between Broker owners and agents in February 2015. We are thrilled with the Real Estate Commission’s decision to include listing syndication in CP-21 and, to our knowledge, Colorado is the first real estate licensing entity in the country to make this move. We are hopeful the decision will be a launching pad for discussion regarding the pros and cons of listing syndication at office meetings. According to the Real Estate Commission, the implementation of the new and improved CP-21 position takes effect immediately.
To help brokers with this process, IRES drafted an office policy template related to Listing Syndication participation. Brokers are welcome to cut, paste and revise the template to best fit office policy. We hope the template will prompt ideas and encourage dialog that leads to thoughtful decisions for brokerages. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact IRES.
IRES MLS: Come Home to Colorado 