This was posted on December 29th, 2006!!! on our MLS access page…problem is I would never had seen it until I actually tried to access the MLS alliance to view listings 5 miles from my house, only to find it gone. Thanks for the warning!!!
This is posted on my MLS

MLS Alliance to Cease Operation January 1

SFARMLS and other MLSs in the Bay Area have been advised by e-Neighborhoods, the MLS Alliance vendor, that it will terminate the service on January 1, 2007. The formation next year of two new MLS entities (Quattro in San Francisco and the North Bay, and NCREX on the northern peninsula and the East Bay) is the likely reason. An effort is being made to put an alternative technical solution in place to allow data to continue to be shared between SFARMLS and REInfoLink on the northern peninsula but that effort may not succeed.

**Wonderful, the most obvious data connection between San Francisco and the northern peninsula might not happen!!!! If you are going to combine MLS’s why not combine them throughout the entire bay area?

In the meantime, SFARMLS users who need access to data from the northern peninsula have two options: (1) Do nothing on the expectation that SFARMLS and REInfoLink will succeed in putting an alternative technology solution in place soon;

**Let me just tell my clients that I’m going to do nothing until something happens…

or (2) Join REInfoLink and, if necessary, the MLSs in the East Bay to assure continued access to that data.

**Oh, yeah, more money solves everything.

We regret the decision of e-Neighborhoods but will do everything possible to minimize its impact on our users.

This is just another reason why I think the only people that are not going to benefit from all the technology advances in real estate are the agents…

Even though the MLS alliance was not a good way to get comps, we could use it to see past sales in the northern peninsula, now we can’t do that and have to use zip realty to view listings 5 miles from my house.

Last year, I moved from the East Bay to San Francisco and joined the San Francisco Board. Even though I still had 6 months left on my East bay membership, they discontinued my access? There was some weird issue with my broker only belonging to the Oakland board…which did not get me access, even though Oakland is part of the east bay…Basically it was very confusing and I never did get my access back, or a refund for the fees (more important to me).

Again, my prediction in 2007 - agents will get tossed around by this huge battle that will take place in the short future between the transparency of real estate and the people that want to keep it privileged information. This is definitely a story I will be keeping up on.

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