Is Your MLS Board a Hostile Workplace?

First of all, let me say that in theory, I fully support and see the value of a Board of Realtors and a Multi List Service. In practice though, I can tell you that not all boards are Realtor Friendly and some have lost sight of who they serve. Sort of like the IRS...we pay their salaries to hire more agents to audit us to pay more taxes....

I belong to 6, yes SIX MLS Boards and systems. Of the six, one board is incredibly hostile. Why are they hostile? A Board is made up of agents and those agents are human beings.

Even though this board has an automated checking system to police errors in the listings, this system has a button that can be pushed anonymously that will send out a fine notice for information errors. So if you have an agent, or two or three in town who obviously have nothing better to do than read MLS new listings and if these two or three people are....shall I say petty....they can mess with you and your office and cost you money and time and time is money.

If the offending agent doesn't correct the error within 48 hours, the fine is $25 and it is on a sliding scale upward for multiple offenses. Therefore, a button pushing agent can effectively create anonymously potential fines not only on required line items but non-required line items in the MLS.

One day we input a listing and hit the upload instead of the save button and the listing went live by mistake. Within 6 minutes there were 5 violations sent to my email box. I wasn't inputting the listing, my assistant was and I was all of a sudden flooded with fine alerts. Six MINUTES...and $125 in potential fines, of which 5 items were not required items to begin with. To say that my blood pressure spiked is an understatement.

Of the remaining 5 other MLS systems that I belong to, I will have one error-alert to every 15 alerts that are received from this particular board.

This situation is so hostile to me that I've considered pulling my listings and my membership and placing my listings in the neighboring 2 over lapping systems. That would solve these petty games for me. However, it would hurt the listing agents who only belong to the offending mls board/system. It would hurt my seller clients by not having the listing in the primary board.

So I remain putting up with this stuff. I try to continue on the high road and I speak at this board to educate and serve from time to time. Public relations efforts, office procedures and real efforts to win over this boards' agents have been met with mixed results.

I must tell you though-this is a real thorn in my side. Obviously I have some enemies who for what ever reason wish to create havoc in my business.

When I come across an error in a listing, I pick up the phone and speak to the agent in a nice way- the way I wish to be treated. If an agent's sign is down, I pick it up and stick it back in the ground. If their lockbox is on the door and I've taken over the listing...I leave a message, or two or three even, for them to get their sign and lockbox. The last thing I do is file a complaint with the board- that I save for serious offenses.

I want agents in the area to show my listings and I want to cooperate with them. That is what co-broke means, that we are all cooperating.

My solutions to the button pushing mls systems is to take away the anonymity. If someone has to face their accuser, they will be less likely to be petty.

To those button pushing agents out there....give me a call, I'll keep you so busy showing and selling houses, you won't ever waste a precious moment of your life reading other agents listings again, unless it is for the purpose of setting up a showing appointment where you will actually potentially earn money.