New Vallarta/Nayarit MLS Search launched!

We’ve been working on an upgrade to our MLS Search, featured at MLSVallarta.com, for the past few months and its now ready to go live.

We’ve built it around Google Maps, which is definitely the best and most accurate mapping system for the region. You’ll find properties from Multi-List Vallarta (the re-sale MLS) and Multi-Dev Vallarta (the pre-sale or new properties MLS) included. We also have a view to see just developments; where they are located and what amenities and features the property has. You can click on the full information view to see more photos of the development and see its current inventory.

We’ve also cleaned up our Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit Maps and Regions page, with descriptions, photos and maps, outlining the borders of each region, on the website as well. And our Articles section features more articles about real estate than you’ll find anywhere else.

Building on this new platform allows us to improve it in many ways going forward. And this is now the most comprehensive and most sophisticated MLS Search available in Mexico, for any destination.

The next update will have an Advanced Search feature, allowing to refine your searches even more. For realtors that are members of  Multi-List Vallarta, we are also updating some features in the Member’s Only section. We’ve increased the map size, so its much easier for you to pinpoint where your new listing is located. And we will be adding this week another feature that calculates Average Listing Price and average Cost per Meter. We certainly welcome comments and suggestions.

Vallarta Real Estate MLS Debate Healthy for the Industry

There has been a lot of talk going on with regards to the upcoming vote for the local real estate chapters for how they will be receiving MLS service in the future, and I think the discussion and debate has been a good one for the industry. Its been a little testy and times, and I’m sure it will only continue to be as they get closer to their upcoming meetings where they will be voting on this issue. But the dialogue has been interesting, long overdue and I think at the end of the day, the local real estate industry will be better for it.

As Rahm Emanuel is fond of saying: “Never let a good crisis go to waste!”

I personally have not had so many luncheons and dinners, or received so many emails or phone calls, discussing MLS and AMPI procedures and policies, than over the past few weeks. I wish more of the discussion was taking place here, on this blog, in the way of comments to the posts, but it seems many are more comfortable sending private emails or phoning, rather than discussing the issues openly here.

This dialogue was badly needed. More need to get involved and speak out on how they feel about this and ask questions, questions for both sides of the debate. There is still an incredible amount of misinformation and misunderstanding of how MLS systems work and what would be best for the local industry. The upcoming AMPI meetings that will discuss these issues should prove very lively and interesting!

MLS Service Update

For Multi-List Vallarta members:

There seems to be a considerable amount of confusion right now over what may be happening regards to MLS service for the Vallarta/Riviera Nayarit region.

Let me be clear that the changes that are taking place will not effect your MLS service. If anything, its going to get better, at least from our side. Our decision to no longer offer MLS service exclusively for the association of AMPI has many aspects to it, but it comes down to that we believe we can offer better service for our clients working one-on-one rather than through the association. AMPI is an integral and important part of the local real estate industry, however, we’d prefer to work on a platform more like we do with our other products, like Vallarta Lifestyles, dealing directly with you rather than through AMPI. The fact that AMPI is actively looking for other options for MLS service only made us think this through more seriously and now rather than later.

This is what you’ll be getting.

With AMPI, if they go with First American’s option, you’ll get a great product for managing your listings. But it is NOT a marketing tool for getting your listings in front of the public. It can only do that, through the interface that each real estate office will be using to show MLS listings on their sites. First American’s system, like many MLS systems in the USA, work behind the scenes, leaving the public contact to be more up to the realtor. They may be considering a public option (but then you get into the difficulty of obtaining good Google positioning and other challenges). Unfortunately that’s a model that is quickly changing these days. Over and over again, through all sorts of industries, the consumer is becoming the one in control. And if you fight it, you get left behind, like newspapers, music producers, and encyclopedia publishers.

Think of Multi-List Vallarta now as a marketing tool. Because of our strong positioning on Google, your listings will show very well on our websites. We will drive traffic to your websites and your email address. You will be able to have your office information listed on the most popular Vallarta real estate websites. You will be able to advertise your listings inside the Vallarta Real Estate Guide. And you’ll be able to receive a print catalog each month, if you like, as well. So we are a MARKETING TOOL to get your listings in front of the public. First American is a system to get your listings in front of other Realtors (we do that too, just not as thorough as they do).

Another important point…

AMPI seems to think that a big advantage is that their system will be connected in with thousands of real estate agents in the USA. There system can certainly do this, but I have serious reservations on how well this would work. How many people go to their Realtor in their hometown to look for real estate in Mexico, or Puerto Vallarta? Perhaps before the Internet existed, when it was hard to get information, but now they can look for real estate in Vallarta just as easily as any Realtor can. People more and more begin their searching back home, in front of their computer. When they get to Vallarta they continue looking through print publications and then through Realtors or developers. But I can’t see anybody asking their Realtor in their hometown (Boise Idaho, let’s say) for information about Puerto Vallarta! That just isn’t going to happen.

Questions for Realtors about Innovia MLS System

I’ve been asked by a couple of Realtors to pass along to them questions that they should be asking about the new Innovia MLS system the local real estate boards are considering. Its not that they are either for or against it, they just don’t know enough about MLS systems, so they asked me. I have reviewed Innovia’s information (as well as for many other 3rd party vendors for MLS systems), so I’m pretty familiar with what it can (and can’t) do. I’ve talked to Realtors in the USA who use it and they like it. But they follow that up with, you have to really know it, and use it, to get the most out of it.

Let me say once again that it really is an impressive system. It offers a lot of options and flexibility for managing your properties and clients. I keep coming back to the word “overkill”, but that’s subjective. Perhaps Realtors really will put all the options to good use. Or, if you only use a few options but the price is really good (less or equal to the current MLV), then that would seem to be fine. But if I was being asked about this system and what my questions were, these would be them:

1. What’s this going to cost?

I’ve heard that FA will not be charging anything. I’ve also heard that it would be the same cost as what MLV currently is. If its the latter, then where’s the money for AMPI in this, and how do we pay for the office and employees?

2. When I use the maps system that FA uses (Microsoft), La Cruz and Fluvial do not show. No streets. Can this be updated and when?

Would bird’s eye view be available in this region? When I checked out the Microsoft maps, the aerial images were old. Tres Mares was not built yet. Only one tower at Peninsula. So how many other developments that were built during the past couple of years, don’t show up? And why can’t you zoom in more, like with Google maps, and what are the images not as clear? Are they only going to update the images every couple of years?

3. The CMA. This seems to be a primary benefit/advantage that people talk about with Innovia. And it is nice. But what is going to change that people are going to start reporting sales? What good is the CMA if there are no solds in the system?

AMPI and the office of MLV have tried for years to get people to report their sales. MLV calls each month about this. But rather than getting better it seems to be getting worse. Some offices have taken the position this is not their information to divulge, its the sellers. And if that seller for some reason doesn’t want it disclosed, but the office discloses it anyways, could they be liable? Why has one of the top offices in town decided not to post their sales? What do they know, or do they think could be the downside to listing sales? We all know that there are still people that register a lower value than that of the actual sales price. I’m sure those people don’t want the sales price disclosed. And now with the current IRS position that all foreign trusts have to be filed with them, how would this effect this? I would love to see this information available so we could generate better reports and have a better idea of what’s going on in our marketplace, but under the current system, I don’t see how that can happen. And as one Realtor put it GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). If its not being entered, no matter how wonderful the CMA module is, it won’t work right. Great CMAs would be wonderful, statistics would be wonderful, but this system is not going to change they way people think about reporting sales. Unless I’m really missing something.

4. Public Side of MLS – will we have this, and when?

This for Realtors to ask: Multi-List Vallarta promotes all of our listings at www.mlsvallarta.com. It has some of the best ranking with Google, as does www.vallartarealestateguide.com and www.virtualvallarta.com. If these sites no longer are featuring the MLS, how will people find my listings? If the ratings in Google for a my office aren’t that good, how will my listings be found? Only on my competitor’s sites (who have good positioning but only show THEIR contact information)? Perhaps AMPI is planning on having their own website to put the MLS, but how long is it going to take them to get good ranking? This is a very competitive business, there are 70 real estate offices and 100 developments that all want to show up for “Vallarta real estate”. But #1 right now is www.mlsvallarta.com. So how will my listings be found online? This is really important if I want to compete/survive with the big offices.

5. What’s the rush? Is the best system that approached us really the best one?

There are about 25 3rd party vendors offering MLS systems. First American provides is one of the largest, but it is the largest for medium-to-large MLS boards (that’s right from their website). They work well with 3,000 to 10,000 Realtors – we have just over 200. What is the top system for small boards? Systems Engineering; they have about half the market. Why aren’t we talking to them? IF FA’s system is so good, why did Los Cabos decide to go with FlexMLS?

6. Money (again)

Its really important to ask about what this is going to cost. Is FA really willing to do this now and for years, for nothing? Currently MLV charges $50 per member. With 70 members that’s $3,500 USD per month. Yes, some pay $100, but that’s to receive services such as listings in a MLV catalog, classifieds in the Real Estate Guide and office directory listings on our websites – things FA won’t offer so you can’t include this in what this can bring in. Will they do it for $3,500 USD a month? Wasn’t there supposed to be something there for AMPI as well? And what about the cost of now having an office, employees, equipment, tech people, utilities, etc. Has AMPI done a detailed study on what the actual incomes and expenses could/would be? If so, why not share it with us?

7. Multi-List Vallarta was operated by non-competitors for agents. Who will control the new MLS?

Got to ask this. For 20 years Flo and I have operated the MLS and we have not sold real estate while doing so – we were not your competition. There was no reason for us to use the information in some way to personally benefit ourselves. But now the control will be with whoever are president of the boards. People who are your competitors. I’m sure they will be honest and fair. But just saying: that was never the case, or had to be brought up, with Multi-List Vallarta.

In summary, FA has a great system. Plenty of bells and whistles. But has AMPI done their homework properly here? Can they supply a budget of what this would cost/earn? And is it smart to take the first system that comes their way?

Real Estate Offices: Getting found on Google Searches

If AMPI decides to establish their own MLS system (and from the feedback we’ve been getting, that seems to be the direction they are going in), it is going to take some time to get it up and running properly. So you’ll want to continue with our service at least until it working and they’ve worked the bugs out of the system. But you’ll also want to continue with our service to ensure that your listing information is found on Google Searches.

Right now, if people search for “vallarta real estate”, or “vallarta MLS” or many, many other key search words or phrases, out websites come out in top position. That means if people use our MLS search available on these sites, your listing information with YOUR contact information, is there. Even if you company website with your listings and MLV Interface comes way down in Google searches, you know that at least your information will appear on www.mlsvallarta.com.

If you look at which other websites come up during these searches, you’ll see that they are either you (if you are one of the lucky one’s!) or your competition. Your listings appear on your competitive sites with the MLV interface, but your contact information is NOT included. However, as long as you have your listings with Multi-List Vallarta, your listings will be in good positions with Google.

So now what about is AMPI goes with First American?

Well, they certainly will not be in the top positions with Google. This takes time, money and a lot of work. They are competing not just against our sites, but 70 other real estate offices and as many real estate developments, who are spending the time, money and doing the work to ensure they show up well. Its going to take time, if they decide to go with a public AMPI search website, to get good positioning.

So you are going to want to continue being a part of Multi-List Vallarta, even after AMPI’s system is up and running, to ensure your listings have the best exposure possible. Even the offices that do have good positioning should do so, as they don’t show up for all key words or phrases. Nobody completely dominates this, but we do come out very well, and we are the only public option available – you can’t advertise on your competitor’s website!

MLS Service: Will your service be affected?

This a continuation of the discussion regarding our recent decision to no longer provide MLS service for the local real estate boards, but rather with the individual real estate offices and developments.

No, your real estate MLS service will not be effected. We have no intention of cutting anyone off, (unless they stop paying us!), service will continue and will actually get better with our upcoming update. Until the AMPI boards make their decision on what they want to do, and if it means going with a new MLS 3rd party vendor, our service will provide MLS service during the implementation period and afterwards. In effect, there would be two MLS systems available in this region. If AMPI decides not to go ahead with another system, well we just continue as we always have, except our relationship and agreements would be with individual real estate offices, not with AMPI.

MLS Service: Non-Ampi Listings accepted?

This a continuation of the discussion regarding our recent decision to no longer provide MLS service for the local real estate boards, but rather with the individual real estate offices and developments.

We’ve had some people asking if we are going to be opening up MLS to non-AMPI offices and if so, what would happen to the “integrity” of AMPI member listings. Good questions and an important ones.

We’ve been giving this a lot of thought; how do we move from being an association MLS service to an open market advertising tool? Because that is what is happening here. Our MLS Search and the services that come with it are just going to become a marketing tool like Lifestyles or the Real Estate Guide are. We don’t limit who can advertise in those publications, so the same should apply to our MLS Search. But with that said, we DO believe that listings that go through the checklist that we established with AMPI are a higher grade, better listing. They are more “saleable”.

In an indirect way, we are already including listings that aren’t AMPI, such as the listings in Multi-Dev Vallarta. We did this because many realtors were telling us that they needed to see EVERYTHING that’s for sale in the region, to do the best for their clients, as the developers have a huge inventory – bigger that AMPI’s. So we did that. But we have also heard from real estate agents that there are a large number of listings out there that are “pocket” listings, many with AMPI members.

In order for you to do the best job for your buying clients, you need to know everything that’s for sale. So we are going to do just that and also accept Pocket Listings. We’ll establish rules for how the can be included so there is no duplication. However, we are going to make a big distinction between those and exclusive listings.

We are going to identify your exclusive listings as “Premium”, in that they have fulfilled the requirements we have had at MLV (and with AMPI) to be “saleable” properties. And we will make it very clear to the visitor that your listings are more “saleable” by marking them so they stand out and explaining this to them. We will follow this up by advertising this in the Vallarta Real Estate Guide and in Vallarta Lifestyles. So those interested in real estate will know that your listings are better than the “others”. For those interested in using our service they will just enter the listing information like they have done in the past at www.mlsvallarta.com. If they don’t forward a copy of the signed listing agreement, we’ll take this to mean its a “standard” listing. Once we get a copy, the listing will become “Premium”.

Now, with regards to working with non-AMPI offices, our intention is to only work with AMPI offices, the one’s we have been working with for years. Any current AMPI member or office will be “grandfathered” in t Multi-List Vallarta. If for some reason they lose their membership (because of not attending enough meetings or because they have not had their salespeople become affiliates of AMPI) or they just decide to no longer be a member, they would continue to be a member of our service, Multi-List Vallarta. However, we would hope they would not drop AMPI, as real estate boards do provide an important function and service.

Any real estate salesperson, if they want their own password/username to access their listings, to use email broadcasting and other services we do/will provide, can join up, the only requirement is that they work for an office that is currently with Multi-List Vallarta. Matter of fact, any salesperson that is not currently using the system can give it a try at no cost, just give Patricia a call at our office and she will set you up with a password/username and you can then starting using and be receiving email broadcast.

Vallarta/Riviera Nayarit MLS Service

For the past twenty years our company, the Vallarta Lifestyles Publishing Group, has provided MLS service to real estate agencies and developers in the Vallarta/Riviera Nayarit region. We started off in 1989 with an open service that was available to anyone that was active in the real estate business. In 1992 we were approached by the local real estate board (AMPI), asking if we would consider making it an exclusive service for just AMPI members. Although it meant losing members (those that weren’t currently with AMPI), I went for it as I thought that a strong real estate board was important for the industry. That decision led to many non-AMPI offices to join the real estate board – in order to assure they’d have MLS service.

The agreement was never formalized, it was done more on a handshake, and remained that way, I would say successfully for many, until yesterday. There are three real estate boards in the region and they are actively looking for other options for MLS service. I can understand their decision. Ours is a small, independent service that cannot match what the larger systems commonly found in Canada and Mexico can offer Realtors for managing the listings and clients. The investment we’d need to make would never prove worthwhile for us to do, we’d never be able to recuperate it, based on the size of this market. For this isn’t a large market, with only a couple hundred Realtors and just over a 1,000 properties in the MLS.

So with the Boards thinking of what other systems could offer them, we thought this would be a good time for us to go back to the independent service we once offered, without any “official” ties to the real estate boards. Rather than working to provide MLS service to a real estate association and real estate board, we’d be working directly with the individual offices, creating marketing campaigns for them just like we do for many with our real estate publications.

Our system began as a closed system, for Realtors only, but has moved towards a system that allows the public to also see what’s for sale on the market. MLS systems in the USA, those operated by real estate boards, continue to want to keep the system closed, even though they are being challenged by this, with the Justice department ruling in May 2008 that it was a monopolistic practice and therefore had to open up their system for others to use as well.

We’ve been watching this with interest and believe our move is just following where MLS is going in the USA and Canada. There are now a number of open MLS systems, such as Zillow, with the biggest being Google. Google is getting into real estate, like they are getting into everything else. And when they get involved, well, they usually end up dominating the market. Google launched a real estate “beta” system recently, although it certainly has its flaws, it is easy to see where they are going with it and it is certainly going to change and challenge the way real estate information is distributed.

We use Google Maps extensively, especially in our new MLS Interface that we will be introducing next week. As they continue to grow their system, we will be right there, as a 3rd party vendor, using their system to offer great marketing tools for real estate agents, developers, and of course, provide easy-to-access information for the buying public. Breaking from the real estate boards allows us the flexibility to make the changes we need to make as the market changes, without the red tape. We have to make this change in order to survive. We are not really being challenged so much by the real estate boards selecting another MLS system, as we are by Google and Zillow and other MLS, independent systems. That’s really what this is about.

And it needs to be said; the way real estate is sold, is changing, and real estate agencies need to embrace this, understand where its going, and not fight it. There will always be a need for realtors, but technology is offering many other options, making the distribution of information easier to obtain, and those that understand where the industry is going will be the one’s leading as it goes through this evolutionary process.

So how will, the fact that our MLS service is now no longer a service of the local real estate boards, effect realtors and real estate offices? I’ve been receiving a lot of emails asking exactly this, so I’m going to take each of these questions here so the answers are available to everyone. This post has been rather long, so I’ll start a separate post for each question I’ve received.

Changes to Real Estate Guide MLV property listings

To MLV Premium Members,

For many years we listed all MLV listings in the Vallarta Real Estate Guide. It was part of the Premium package where you get these listings (unlimited) and your office listed on our online directory at mlsvallarta.com. This worked fine when there were only 350 MLS listings and the Guide had more than 50 pages. Well, things changed. The MLS inventory shot up to over 1,100 listings last year and the Real Estate Guide fell to less than 40 pages. To include all the listings it would have taken up 12 pages!

So we decided to look at this a little closer. We noticed that 60% of the offices have less than 10 listings but that one office had over 100 listings. The system wasn’t fair. The larger office was paying something like  2.5 pesos for each property included. Using that figure, we were making less than 20 USD per page in the Real Estate Guide, when an advertising page costs $600 USD. It was clearly not sustainable . And, going to a layout like we now have, where photos aren’t included, isn’t fair either, nor does it look good. So we decided to make it more fair.

For the November issue we are going to allow offices to include 12 properties in the Real Estate Guide with the Premium plan. And, we are going to increase the size of the MLV ad by nearly double; increasing the photo size and the text size so it is easier to read. This way 2/3s of the offices will be able to include ALL their listings. You will be able to check off, in the Member’s Only section of MLSVallarta.com, which properties you want to list. Check off 12, and next issue they will appear. If you want to list more, there will be a small extra charge per property.

For Premium MLV members, we will also be listing your online office contact information in a much better way, including your logo, contact info, description of services offered and space for you to describe your business services. You will control this information, inside the Member’s Only portal. We are also adding icons for affiliations you may have, or awards you have won. You will be able to control this as well (just be honest about it, we’ll check!). This will be ready in November as well.

More about Vallarta MLS Service…

I’ve been asked to elaborate a little more about what I mean by “back-end” and “front-end” MLS services.

Back end involves all those services that a realtor or real estate office needs to do to maintain and keep track of their listings and clients. They add/update listing information, prepare Comparative Market Analyses, and even can have built-in contact management systems. This is especially helpful when you have a large office with a lot of listings and clients. However, we calculated  what the average real estate office has for listings in the current MLS. The results were surprising; 80% of the offices had less than 20 MLS listings. 17% had between 20-50 listings and 3% had more than 50 MLS listings. Makes you wonder how complicated or sophisticated a system you need when 80% of your offices only have less than 20 listings.

Front end involves what is done with that information to help the Realtor or real estate office market their properties for their clients. This involves having MLS Search featured on websites on the Internet for the public. It involves tying the MLS properties in with print publications (such as what we currently do with the MLS Catalog and the Vallarta Real Estate Guide). Its using the MLS inventory as a marketing tool to attract buyers and sellers.

Back-end systems are about inventory and client maintenance and administration, Front-end systems are about marketing. In my opinion, Front-end systems are more important. Back-end becomes critical when you have larges offices and hundreds of listings, but if, as mentioned above, 80% of the offices in the Vallarta region have less than 20 listings, is it not overkill?

When we’ve looked at improving our back-end systems, we found it to be just too expensive with not enough members to make our investment pay for itself. The systems AMPI is currently looking at offer great back-end systems and as they are major US corporations serving major real estate boards, they can leverage their investments in this area to make it feasible for even small boards such as Vallarta. However, what they lack is the front end. As small as our company is, we can help market properties much better than they can. And with our Google positioning for key phrases, it is basically impossible for them to match what we can offer.

What I’m suggesting then, if Back-end is critical to AMPI, that they get a 3rd party vendor to supply that service for them. They then can use us to help market their properties, just like they currently do in our publications such as Vallarta Lifestyles and the Vallarta Real Estate Guide.