It’s super confusing if you’re searching the MLS homes for sale or someones web site, we get it. The MLS verbiage started gaining a lot of traction in the mid 2000 era when agents and larger brokerages started promoting it on their web sites and business cards. But what is the MLS and are you actually using it with sites like Zillow and Realtor?

First, MLS, it stands for Multiple Listing Service and is a trademarked logo/term. This is the site that Licensed Realtors use and pay month fees to have access. In the height of the 2000 real estate market many companies not only started using the term all over but some even put it in their domain names in hopes to obtain traffic. This started a lot of confusion in the marketplace so the Commerce Department stepped in to set some rules. The rules set in motion how the term could be used in marketing as far as domain names were concerned.

Today, most all Realtor web sites have the MLS embedded into them as a 3rd party site that pulls the data from the MLS. So while you’re not actually on the real MLS on any site you are seeing data pulled from it. Some of the issues you may encounter with this are delays and misinformation. There are many delays on these 3rd party sites. For example a new listing may come on in Plymouth but some of the 3rd party sites may only pull date every several hours so it’s not as up to date as using a Realtor. Another issue is once a home sells the 3rd party sites often have delays of showing that status for days or months.

If you have any questions about the MLS contact us here.