It was reported today in Overseas Property Professionals that a group consisting of Immobel, NAR, FECEPAC and others are collaborating on a project to create an international MLS system for Central America.

LANDMARK DEAL CREATES INTERNATIONAL MLS

FECEPAC, Immobel, NAR, FNAIM, Central America, Caribbean, MLS, portals, Google, Enormo, ICREA, Worldproperties, 

A landmark agreement is to create an international multiple listing system (MLS) for Central America, bringing the concept of a genuinely global listings exchange a step closer.

Through a deal with real estate technology provider Immobel, the Central American and Caribbean real estate association, FECEPAC will make its members property listings available online through consumer portals and allow foreign agents to display them on their websites.

Immobel, which already offers a listings exchange service between real estate associations NAR in the US and FNAIM in France, will translate FECEPACs listings into 12 other languages and provide the functions of a brokers MLS.

The listings will also be uploaded to Google Real Estate and international portals including ICREAs soon to be relaunched WorldProperties.com and Enormo.com.

“FECEPAC didnt have anything like an MLS, so weve stepped in to help them market internationally,” Immobel CEO Janet Choynowski told OPP. “There are very few centralised MLSs and there are a number of Asian and Latin American countries in particular who need one.”

New challenge

Immobel had previously declined requests to create national MLSs because it wasnt part of the companys core business, she added. “But the technology really fits the bill and now we may go ahead and say yes to other markets who need this.

“The cost of creating an MLS, translating the listings and creating multiple data feeds to send listings to different portals would be a real burden to individual countries. But we already have the ability to input listings in 13 languages, which covers 90% of internet traffic. This could open a lot of doors in a lot of countries.”

FECEPAC includes members from Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. The listings are being counted as they are uploaded but Choynowski said the associations market was similar in size to that of somewhere like Las Vegas. “We could expect to see around 30,000-40,000 listings,” she said.

The announcement follows last months news that the Miami Realtor association RAMB was partnering with FECEPAC and Immobel to market Florida property to Central American buyers.

Move Inc, the operators of REALTOR.com and a list of many quality products and services to the real estate industry has had a rough ride.  In total, they have lost over $2 Billion dollars in their history, and were profitable for two years.  On the surface, this sounds like pretty poor performance, but nothing could be further from the truth.  They have accomplished some outstanding milestones and could be close to hitting a home run.  All of the ingredients are in place.  They have the largest consumer audience with strong advertiser support, the most data, and significant agent/broker sales revenue.

Music streaming company Pandora faced similar performance from their early beginnings in 2000, but just hit the profit button to the tune of $100 Million (pun intended).  In reading their business story, they sound a lot like Move.

Both Move and Pandora rely on content provided by others to power the services they offer to consumers.  Move relies on the relationships with 900 MLSs for their data feeds; Pandora relies on licensing music from record labels.  If you will recall, Pandora was successful in negotiating $.08 per song (25% of revenue) to stay friendly with the record industry when Napster was trying to display music content royalty free.

Pandora got lucky.

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OK, early adopters get ready!  Who will be the first in your circle to get a new iPad?  Having moved to the Mac world myself last year, I am ready to go!  I find myself sounding like a paid ad whenever the topic of Mac comes up, but in truth, when I get on a PC now, it drives me crazy!  I love my Macs.  

PRESS RELEASE

iPad Available in US on April 3

Pre-Order on March 12

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Apple® today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

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Looking for a job in real estate?  Vendor Alley has just announced a great new tool for real estate technology companies, associations, MLSs and others to post their job openings.

Becuase of Vendor Alley’s “candor” and “calling it like they see it” tone, it attracts a broad and diverse audience of readers.  The blog often becomes the topic of conversations at conferences because it often says what everyone wants to say, but won’t.

We just posted a job for the EVP position for the Orlando Regional REALTOR AssociationMLS.  Go and check it - who knows you might find a new job too!

Press Release from Neilson:  Women and people between 35 and 54 are most apt to perform social networking activities via mobile device, according to data from The Nielsen Company.  Since Women are a core audience for REAL Estate Marketing, it would seem that social mobile networking would be a good strategy for agents and brokers today.

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