The MLS - The Multiple Listing Service
You often hear the term "MLS" used by real estate agents and on real estate sites. What is it? Well, you can think of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as the online “catalog” for all local real estate listings.Here's how it works: When a new property is listed for sale with a real estate agent, he or she gathers as much information as possible about the property, including photographs of the exterior and special features. Now, the information is loaded into a local database that is available on the internet, usually for all real estate brokers who are members of the MLS system to use and display on their own sites.
You can learn more about various aspects of the MLS by exploring these articles:
- What is MLS and Why Should I care?
- How Can I Gain Access to a Multiple Listing Service (MLS)?
- Selling property? What's best – FSBO and the MLS?
- How to Read an MLS Listing MLS - a Great Resource for Real Estate Buyers
- Selling Real Estate - Why Bother With a MLS Agent?
- Why Does a Real estate agent need a Multiple Listing Service?
- Privacy and Security through the MLS
Even before the advent of the internet, the MLS still existed.
About a half-century ago, the real estate industry began compiling and recording printed booklets of information about property offered for sale. These books were disseminated bi-weekly and provided an invaluable resource to real estate agents, buyers, and sellers about the scope of real estate availability in a given geographic area.
Thanks to the Internet, the cumbersome process of gathering data and reprinting it has been replaced by a more simplified process that enables information to be shared almost as soon as the ink is dry on a real estate contract. Also as a result of the internet real estate offerings far from home can be considered with the click of a mouse.
With access to MLS listings available via the internet to almost all home buyers (New York City, for example, is an exception), visitors to the sites of local brokers have access to all homes represented by licensed agents in that area. For Sale By Owner listings (link to FSBO article on page 2) typically are not loaded into the MLS database, and get less exposure than agent represented listings.
