Fighting on another data aggregation front

Do you own your report?

Maybe not. Maybe your client does. Your appraisal report is work performed on its behalf, after all.

Surely not, if you agree to share it with a data aggregating service, such as by using the Appraisal Institute Residential Database (AIRD). Which you do when you deliver your report via that medium.

Until recently, the issue of who owns MLS listing data had never seriously been in doubt. By their nature, data – facts – cannot be "owned" by anybody. Descriptive words, phrases and pictures may be "owned," but in that case, it had never seriously been questioned that the listing agent owns his or her listing information. (Similarly, facts in your report – square footage, acreage, last sale price – cannot be "owned," but your opinion of value is different, and may be "owned." And bought, and sold.)

Many of you are aware that in addition to Appraiser XSites, we at a la mode develop similar websites for real estate agents, Agent XSites. Like Appraiser XSites, Agent XSites are websites and contact and schedule management tools, primarily for individual real estate agents. These agents invest in securing an online presence whereby they market themselves as the real estate agent of choice in their area. In addition to consumer-oriented content, mortgage and budget calculators, and the like, Agent XSites obviously allow agents to showcase the properties they have listed for sale in their area.

Agents may upload photos, property information, listing prices, etc. on their listings directly to their Agent XSite. However, since many Agent XSite users have already uploaded all this information to REALTOR.com®, Agent XSites included a feature whereby the agent could type the MLS number of their listing into XSites' listings wizard, hit submit, and have all of the information already uploaded to REALTOR.com® automatically uploaded onto their personal Agent XSite. This was a one-time access to REALTOR.com's® servers – when the property was viewed on the Agent XSite, the photo and other information were resident on the XSite, not REALTOR.com®. About a third of the thousands of Agent XSites users took advantage of this timesaving feature.

Homestore, the owner and operator of REALTOR.com®, insisted that a la mode disable this feature, citing among other things copyright infringement. While REALTOR.com®'s Terms of Use and Frequently Asked Questions make it clear that each individual agent owns his or her listings photos and data, in practice it enforces "copyright" to the data its users upload to its servers, in our case in the form of cease and desist letters threatening us with legal action if we continued to offer the feature.

Homestore also alleges a breach of its Terms of Use in an agent's use of Agent XSites' listing wizard – the same Terms of Use that require the agent be the owner of the data being uploaded.

One of the best lines from "talk around the office" on this here at a la mode was that "Homestore doesn't know what it just stepped in." We disabled the feature from Agent XSites, after unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a license on behalf of our agent customers – for their own data – because our first and foremost concern was the convenience of our busy customers. Agents don't like to duplicate work any more than we're sure you do. But if our appraiser customers have learned anything about us as a company over the last going on 20 years, it's that we don't knuckle under when someone tries to make things harder on our customers.

We don't sponsor AVM conferences. We don't integrate AVMs into our appraisal software (see below). We've led the PR fight against data aggregation and automated valuations. Pick any AVM story from the mortgage press that manages to get the appraiser's side on record, and the chances are excellent it's someone from our company doing the talking. When AVM advocates allege that their product is better than an appraisal, we counter that argument aggressively, and every time we hear it. When someone unaccountably portrays appraisers as Luddite anti-technology neanderthals, we call them on it. Appraisers are more conversant in the latest technology than almost any participant in the real estate transaction.

We insist, rightly, that AVMs cannot compete with appraisers because their data is old and unreliable, and their models flawed enough that two AVMs running on the same property are liable to give you wildly differing values. Like many of your clients, who don't like two week turn times caused by volume any more than you do, we won't sign on to the theory that AVMs can replace appraisers – because they don't work as well. Period. If they did, your clients would flock to them, and leave you – and us – out in the cold.

The issue is of a different kind and character with regard to listings ownership, but it's an issue that touches all real estate professionals. AVM advocates want appraisers' data (or, really, any data will do, so long as a value gets spit out at the end) to power a faster alternative to appraisers. Homestore simply wants consumers to come to their REALTOR.com® site to shop for houses. They sell advertising targeted at home shopping consumers.

More to the point, and more revenue generating, they seek to monopolize the agent's web presence. An agent can list a property on REALTOR.com® and link to their website for consumers to see more of their properties for sale in the area – but only if that website is a "Showcase" website purchased from – you guessed it – REALTOR.com®. If an agent has a suzysellsrealestate.com website, whether an Agent XSite or otherwise, that's not through REALTOR.com®, Suzy can't direct home shoppers to it.

If Suzy has set up a virtual tour of one of her properties, she can link to it from her REALTOR.com® listing – provided, of course, it's one of the virtual tours sanctioned by REALTOR.com®. REALTOR.com® of course will be kind enough to sell you one for $40. If Suzy has used another provider, which may be cheaper, better or both, she may be out of luck.

Like the talk of AVMs replacing appraisers, we intend for the assertion that REALTOR.com® owns an agent's listings to be challenged, and fought vigorously – and successfully. Agents and appraisers too often have an adversarial relationship, because one has a commission stake in the deal closing. But they have one thing in common: Companies with a lot of clout and money trying to misuse their work product. We haven't stood for it in your case, and we won't stand idly by in the case of our agent customers.

Many of you are agents. All of you (on the residential side) know agents. Start complaining to your board directly, or tell your agent friends to. Demand that they raise the issue with REALTOR.com® that their Terms of Use agreement be quickly changed to not restrict the private use of the agent's own listing. Raise the issue with your friends and associates – this affects all agents, regardless of software brand.

Finally, agents can let Homestore executives know personally how they feel. Homestore's CEO, Mike Long, said when he took the reins at Homestore in 2002 that he would work hard to repair damaged relationships with the boards and the membership, and we have to take him at his word. We think some leadership on this issue would resolve it to everyone's benefit. Mike's asked on many occasions that REALTORS® feel free to contact him directly, so here's his e-mail address: mike.long@homestore.com. If you're an agent, let him know what you think.

In the appraisal area, we're sometimes seen as the 5,000 pound gorilla, picking our fights and laying off when it doesn't suit us. We're demonstrating to all our customers, you included, that we don't pick our spots. If someone wants to screw around with our customers, they have to go through us. You can bank on it.