Serious conversations have begun at the top levels of the residential real estate industry to merge and overhaul the data collection services for the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Thought to be long overdue by many inside and outside the industry. Old habits are hard to kick, but the migration of home sale inventory to the Internet and new online brokerage models have forced change on an industry that has been steeped in control of what many believe is one of the largest values added today in the sale or purchase of a home; the Multiple Listing Service.

Mark Nash author of four real estate books including his latest 1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home and a regular columnist for RealtyTimes.com outlines proposed changes to the MLS.

-The first wide-spread MLS services came into use in the 1950's. Real estate brokers and consumers tired of visiting each office to collect home sale inventory information. Brokers formed information cooperatives to share home listing information and offer brokers from other companies a sales commission if they brought a buyer to a successful sale. This is known as a cooperating commission.

-Each regional geographic Board of Realtors(R) soon had their own MLS. Cities could have multiple MLS's and states could have many more. These independent data collections services could not interact or aggregate all their information with other MLS's.

-Early MLS's were broker-member owned or controlled. In the 1990's , control of many MLS's moved to being controlled and managed by local Associations of Realtors(R). The rapid expansion of the Internet in residential real estate created new data abuses by online cooperating brokers and traditional brokers who typically had the majority of listing inventory wanted more hands-on control of MLS's and who could receive data feeds from them.

-The National Association of Realtors(R) addressed this control of information issue by creating an opt-in and opt-out policy where a broker could decide if their listing information could be shared on the Internet with cooperating brokers in their MLS. Many thought this policy was not necessarily in the real estate consumers best interest.

-The Justice Department filed a lawsuit concerning the opt-in and opt-out policy against the National Association of Realtors(R)(NAR) in the third quarter of 2005 claiming that this opt-in, opt-out policy was anticompetitive. The NAR group amended it policy to comply, but the Justice Department has continued it's litigation.

-NAR controls overall policy for MLS's but does not own or manage MLS's. They do aggregate MLS data from all the US on their web site Realtor.com.

-A settlement between NAR and the Justice Department could fracture the data collection process for NAR as some member brokers might not want to adhere to agreed changes to force all members to opt-in. Dissatisfied brokers could leave NAR and splinter the Realtor(R) associations at the local, state and national level over online data control and ownership.

Consensus now believes that the MLS system will be consolidated into fewer but larger MLS's. Markets that cross state borders will become seamless in MLS systems. State associations might manage all MLS's in their jurisdiction.

-Multiple MLS's serving the same geography will become one for cost and management efficiencies.

-The MLS could become a utility, as consumers right or wrong view it today.

-New competitors in the real estate industry such as Zillow.com or craigslist.org could create a new independent MLS. The future of the MLS is also the future of the residential real estate industry.