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The Largest Home Market in Texas
Where do Houston homebuyers find information on more than 30,000 local houses for sale all in one convenient place? The Houston Association of Realtors® Multiple Listing Service (HARMLS), owned and operated by your local Realtor® association, provides broker-listing access to buyers and sellers through participating broker sites like SterlingResidential.Com.

Locally, HARMLS brings the largest number of buyers and sellers together, closing more than 72,000 property sales worth more than $12 billion during 2004 alone — no other marketplace comes close. HARMLS is the essential home sales marketing system in Houston, providing real estate market support unmatched by any other single source.

MLS Technology —- From Pencil to Keyboard
Multiple Listing Services were started by broker agreements to cooperate in the sales of their listings; the first such service was created about 100 years ago between two San Diego brokers. Before technology, listings started out as handwritten lists, notes, and cards, some organized and compiled in shoeboxes and updated by hand with pen or pencil. Not until the 1970’s were the first computers employed to track listings and within a few years listings were available through proprietary computer networks.

In the Internet age, web-based intranets are replacing proprietary systems available only to brokers. During the 1990’s, listing information was first made available directly to consumers, and with the growth of broadband services like DSL and Internet-cable access, consumers are enjoying an ever wider distribution and larger variety of information than ever before possible. Technology has transformed MLS listing information from handwritten notes, to bulky printed books, and finally to the Internet portals like SterlingResidential.Com that we use today.

Online Listings Start with Broker Participation
Realtors® embraced Internet technology and made the HARMLS available to consumers. According to a 2004 NAR survey of buyers and sellers, 77 percent of all buyers use the Internet to search for homes, and the best place to search are web sites powered by the MLS.

Like most MLS systems in the country, HARMLS is owned by the local Realtor® association. It’s the cooperative effort of thousands of local Realtors®, contributing financial and operations support, that makes the MLS possible. Without broker participation, there would be no MLS or online listings.

The Internet Builds Consumer Information
MLS listings provide information about properties available for sale or lease. Much of the MLS information relates to property descriptions and includes address, legal descriptions, locations, driving directions, dimensions, rooms and sizes, amenities, features, property taxes, fee, terms, and contact information. The information is compiled and entered by brokers into a searchable MLS database and made available to broker participants and consumers.

With Internet-based MLS systems, brokers can add another dimension to the home search process. Internet technology allows brokers to post digital photos, virtual tours, and documents to the MLS, adding depth and increasing the efficiency of the home search process. Internet connectivity adds even more by connecting buyers and sellers to neighborhood information, sales statistics, school information, tax information, mapping technology, open house information, new listing galleries, services and resources available through participating broker web sites like SterlingResidential.Com.

MLS Competitors Try Their Hand
A host of web sites, developed to compete directly with the MLS, included their own inventory of homes for sale. What most consumers found instead was confusing variety of web sites offering partial market information and limited numbers of homes for sale. Homebuyers didn’t like searching multiple sites with limited housing inventory, and sellers weren’t getting the promised marketing exposure. As a result, many of these businesses joined the MLS because no better source of listing inventory exists.

Ebay, so successful in online auctions for a variety of second-hand consumer goods, tried to duplicate that success in the home sales market. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Ebay executives pointed out that they’ve made little progress in the real estate market, noting that the Realtor® MLS network is an efficient method of buying and selling houses. Ebay works great at bringing efficiency to otherwise fractured markets, but it wasn’t able to compete with the effectiveness and scale of the MLS, according to Wall Street Journal writer, Nick Wingfield.

MLS Efficiency Works for Buyers and Sellers
The HARMLS is a specialized marketplace bringing buyers and sellers together in the transaction of very unique products —- houses. More than 70 percent of buyers begin their home search on the web and, with that kind of traffic, it’s where the sellers are, too. In fact, if you’re selling your home through HARMLS, it can be viewed across the nation by anyone with Internet access through portals like SterlingResidential.Com, HAR.com and Realtor.Com, giving sellers the broadest possible marketing exposure.

The resulting combination of the Internet and the MLS has empowered real estate consumers like nothing before, giving buyers and sellers unprecedented market information once only available in the broker’s office. Buyers educated with sales information are likely to present workable offers, saving time and money for all parties. Using the same sales information, Sellers can effectively position their home for sale and reach targeted consumers through the MLS and Internet.

Realtors® Plug Buyers and Sellers Into the Marketplace
Combine the MLS and the local Realtor® network of HAR and you’ve got an expansive network of agents working for you. The MLS exposes your home to an interconnected community of Realtors® —- knowledgeable professionals who have assembled a market to bring buyers and sellers together, to match needs, to combine resources, and to bring about the successful sale of residential real estate.

MLS marketing is essential, but it’s the cooperative Realtor® network that sells your house. Realtors® are networked and plugged into the local housing market. They understand the process and the legal requirements, and can leverage the MLS to your best advantage. And the networking advantage goes beyond MLS access, as Realtors® are often the contact point for other service providers useful to buyers and sellers.

Sellers: Put the Realtor® MLS to Work for You
Realtors® give you entry to the most effective and broadest real estate marketplace, the HARMLS providing you with exposure to thousands of local brokers and their clients. Built upon the HARMLS, participating broker web sites like SterlingResidential.Com, HAR.Com and Realtor.Com reach Internet buyers across the country —- marketing leverage you can’t find anywhere else.

So, when you’ve made the decision to sell, or made the decision to buy, ask your Realtor® how the HARMLS system can work for you. Buyers and sellers have access to sales information like never before and your Realtor® is best way to transform that information into knowledge that works for you.