Help! How do appraisers get access to MLS data Or other listing, sale price, type of loan data

[Tejus]

How do other appraisers deal with this?

The real estate industry participants (includes appraisers and realtors) need to push their local boards to consolidate the MLS's, preferably on a state wide basis. This would save the industry participants millions of dollars each year in direct cost (MLS fees) and indirect costs (time spent learning and using overlapping MLS's). The overlapping MLS's are costing my local MLS members $8m+ per year (confirmed with the local boards MLS fees and MLS participation numbers).

The MLS consolidation solution is readily available:
- Create a standalone entity to manage the MLS
- Each local board who wants to use the consolidated MLS receives a tier'ed ownership based on the number of members they have.
- A realtor/appraiser can belong to single board they choose and have access to all the MLS data.
- The realtor/appraiser's MLS fee remains similar to an earlier single MLS membership fee and they now have access to all the consolidated MLS's data.
- This has been successfully used in NTREIS (15 local boards) and Central Tx MLS (5 boards). I'm sure there are other examples across the country.

Some of the local boards are fighting this due to the following:
- Their membership will drop.
- There membership fee income will drop.

This all comes down to a simple question for the local Board leaders:
Is the member's best interest or propping up the local Board more important ?

The local boards representing the member's best interest are performing MLS consolidation.
The local boards trying to prop up their board refuse MLS consolidation.

MLS consolidation is common business sense, but many boards are making this into a political decision. The members have to vote for board leaders who will represent the members' best interest and provide MLS consolidation.

This is all explained in the NAR web page:

https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar/policies/MLS-consolidation-resources/challenges-and-obstacles

bueno suerto.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

My fees are $537 every December for dues and $227

Yipes... I pay $225 + 45 a month.

 

[Badlands]

Wow, that is crazy - talk to one of the MLS boards, sometimes they have reciprocal memberhsip in other nearby boards and carry each other's listings .

Thanks, that is a good suggestion.

 

[Badlands]

The real estate industry participants (includes appraisers and realtors) need to push their local boards to consolidate the MLS's, preferably on a state wide basis. This would save the industry participants millions of dollars each year in direct cost (MLS fees) and indirect costs (time spent learning and using overlapping MLS's). The overlapping MLS's are costing my local MLS members $8m+ per year (confirmed with the local boards MLS fees and MLS participation numbers).

The MLS consolidation solution is readily available:
- Create a standalone entity to manage the MLS
- Each local board who wants to use the consolidated MLS receives a tier'ed ownership based on the number of members they have.
- A realtor/appraiser can belong to single board they choose and have access to all the MLS data.
- The realtor/appraiser's MLS fee remains similar to an earlier single MLS membership fee and they now have access to all the consolidated MLS's data.
- This has been successfully used in NTREIS (15 local boards) and Central Tx MLS (5 boards). I'm sure there are other examples across the country.

Some of the local boards are fighting this due to the following:
- Their membership will drop.
- There membership fee income will drop.

This all comes down to a simple question for the local Board leaders:
Is the member's best interest or propping up the local Board more important ?

The local boards representing the member's best interest are performing MLS consolidation.
The local boards trying to prop up their board refuse MLS consolidation.

MLS consolidation is common business sense, but many boards are making this into a political decision. The members have to vote for board leaders who will represent the members' best interest and provide MLS consolidation.

This is all explained in the NAR web page:

https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar/policies/MLS-consolidation-resources/challenges-and-obstacles

bueno suerto.

Really good information. A huge part of this country is pretty rural, my challenges cannot be that unique. There are barriers to rural appraisal that go beyond the supervisor issue. I understand that MLS boards are private sector entities, but their use seems to be expected by lenders and AMC and appraisal rule makers in general. There should not be a barrier to getting market data that we are expected to use.

 

[Badlands]

Try to bargain with them. If they are really feeling an appraiser shortage, they may work with you. Talk to the MLS president first. If they are well covered already, is it worth your time and money?

No it isnt worth it for me at this time. If it was affordable I would use the data as part of my research on rural properties and do more or the rural work in that area. I am not sure how well covered they are as the wait time for an appraisal is about 2 months.

 

[Fernando]

I'm not familiar with rural areas and how MLS works but the MLS should work together with appraisers since our business is symbiotic,
30 years ago, my MLS did not allow appraisers to join. Because I had a Realtor license, I was able to get into the MLS.
Along the way I don't know when it happened but eventually MLS allowed appraisers to have access. May be MLS needed more revenues by getting more members.
I wasn't too thrill because it allowed county assessor appraisers to have privy info on sales which can be use to increase some owner's taxes.

 

[sputnam]

One of the pieces of being competent to appraise a particular property is having access to and using the data needed to arrive at credible assignment results. If you don't know how to get access to MLS data... or whatever data source is appropriate for the area... you probably need to decline the assignment. You aren't competent to do it.,

 

[Badlands]

Sooo, by your standards people who live in areas not served by MLS should not be able to mortgage their property?
If you read the thread you would see part of the question is that I get requests for a city that I do not serve because the cost of applying to MLS is over $3000 before monthly fees. Cost benefit to take work in that area is not worth it.
Between the county and publicly available information / photos from realtor websites i can get good property information for the area I serve, but I often cannot get listing price or DoM for a decent market analysis so I decline work in Rapid City and much of the surrounding area.
I am in a rural area, I am located 80 to 100 miles from three different poplulation centers that use three different local MLS services. Then there all the small communities in between, that have very few sales sold by agents. 4 or 5 sales in a year , with no listing price, to doesnt make for much of a market analysis. Of course there isnt much of a market to analyze.

 

[sputnam]

Sooo, by your standards people who live in areas not served by MLS should not be able to mortgage their property?
If you read the thread you would see part of the question is that I get requests for a city that I do not serve because the cost of applying to MLS is over $3000 before monthly fees. Cost benefit to take work in that area is not worth it.
Between the county and publicly available information / photos from realtor websites i can get good property information for the area I serve, but I often cannot get listing price or DoM for a decent market analysis so I decline work in Rapid City and much of the surrounding area.
I am in a rural area, I am located 80 to 100 miles from three different poplulation centers that use three different local MLS services. Then there all the small communities in between, that have very few sales sold by agents. 4 or 5 sales in a year , with no listing price, to doesnt make for much of a market analysis. Of course there isnt much of a market to analyze.

I enjoy when forumites don't read (or maybe don't understand) almost as much as when underwriters don't read. I said... MLS... OR WHATEVER DATA SOURCE and it's not me that decided that... it's in USPAP.

 

[Badlands]

I enjoy when forumites don't read (or maybe don't understand) almost as much as when underwriters don't read. I said... MLS... OR WHATEVER DATA SOURCE and it's not me that decided that... it's in USPAP.

But the question wasn’t how does the appraiser find any data source, it was specific to MLS. There is no mention of not finding any data, it is the listing date and price for market analyses that is the challenge. When the lender require MLS in areas that are either not served by MLS or where the access is too expensive unless the area is your single source of revenue, are there options other than declining the assignment? Declining the assignment is what I opt to do, especially for lenders and AMC’s that are not familiar with the area. But that leaves some rural areas underserved. I am looking for information on how other appraisers handle this - other than declining.