Our precious MLS: what is it about?

Heard of MLS? If you’ve ever dealt with a realtor, you surely have.Being a realtor gives me plenty of opportunity to work with GTA MLS every day. Let’s have a look what this short abbrev stands for.

The essentials of MLS

MLS stands for Multiply Listing Service or System – a database of all the real estates for sale in a certain area. Its purpose is to link a realtor working for the seller with a realtor working for the buyer.It holds all the available information about the property in question (the owner, its address, footage, number of bedrooms  and so on). It also gives info on the local area (services, transportation, etc.) and other information that the owner wished to public.

If it sounds like any listing you have access to online, it’s not.MLS is currently accessible only to the realtors, since it was created and is maintained by realtors. The information on the available property on various real estate blogs are not complete. You might get an idea about the property, but will always have to contact the realtor for more information in the end.

A bit of history

The history of MLS reaches some 50 years ago when the “database” were bi-weekly updated ringed binders by the local board of realtors.The first “upgrade” of the system came up when the real bound MLS books appeared once a month with weekly updates.Only realtors paying the membership fees were entitled to the information in the system.The 70s brought the 3rd generation: the database was finally computerized and accessible through dumb terminals and phone lines.Yet more modernization was about to come: the beginning of 90s, expansion of personal computers and the evolvement of the Internet finally established the system we are using now: web-based databases.

What about the future?

Some people think that the current version of MLS isn’t sufficient enough.Especially in the USA there’s an excited discussion about so called MLS 5.0 based on the features of ‘web 2.0′.
The new version should provide information on all the properties nationwide, not just those currently on the market (parcel based) and should be to some degree accessible also for customers, vendors and developers.No such system is currently being prepared in Canada.

So how can MLS be useful to you, the customer?

Currently over 7 out of 10 properties are sold through the MLS. MLS is very important for the seller because it allows them to get their property as much exposure as possible.The buyers benefit as well – because of MLS, their broker have a complete information about the current supply on the real estate market.Hence always ask your realtor if they have access to MLS of the region you have interest at.