Two North Carolina multiple listing services will soon combine their real estate listings into one database accessible to their 11,000 combined members with a single login.
The Carolina Multiple Listing Services Inc., a subsidiary of the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association, and the North Carolina Mountains Multiple Listing Services have signed a deal for CarolinaMLS to operate and serve as a wholesale vendor for NCMMLS.
This means that CarolinaMLS, which has about 8,500 subscribers, will provide core services, training and support for NCMMLS’ 2,500 subscribers. The integration of their combined 34,000 listings into one database is expected to be complete in June or July.
Maren Brisson-Kuester
“This collaboration between the two MLSs is a great opportunity for subscribers here and in the mountains. It will increase ease of business for our members through sharing of data and mutual cooperation and compensation,” said CarolinaMLS President Maren Brisson-Kuester in a statement.
Listings will not be combined on the MLSs’ public-facing sites or on member Internet data exchange (IDX) sites, except where brokerages are members of both MLSs. Feeds to third-party sites will also remain separate, but may be combined as appropriate or necessary, Brisson-Kuester told Inman.
“We have not worked out every detail but are committed to make it work,” she said.
Each MLS interface will retain its separate branding and both MLSs will maintain their legal status as MLSs. The MLSs will remain separate because that “was the approach that was most comfortable for both MLSs at this time,” Brisson-Kuester said.
CarolinaMLS serves a multicounty area that includes Charlotte and the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina. NCMMLS covers 15 counties in western North Carolina.
Over on the state’s coast, several Realtor associations have joined forces to create a regional MLS that is slated to go live in 2016.
When asked whether CarolinaMLS had considered joining the new initiative, Brisson-Kuester noted that CarolinaMLS has been around for more than 15 years and is already the largest regional MLS between Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
“We believe in CarolinaMLS’ ability to offer greater operating efficiencies and new products and services to other MLSs like NC Mountains MLS. It is what ultimately drove their decision to make the agreement with us,” she said.
“The ‘NC MLS’ initiative is still in the early stages, and only time will tell how it operates and what it ends up looking like.”
