Whether you’re buying or selling a home, you’re likely to hear the term MLS, which stands for Multiple Listing Service. The MLS is a platform used by real estate agents and brokers to share information about properties for sale and find available listings for prospective buyers. If you’re embarking on a home search or considering putting your home up for sale, your local MLS will likely be an important part of the process.
In real estate, the MLS is a database of homes for sale in a particular geographic region. When real estate agents list a property for sale, they add it to the MLS database, allowing all agents and brokers in the region who have access to the system to review the listing. Buyers’ agents use the MLS to find homes to show clients. The information listed on the MLS includes pictures and detailed descriptions of the homes for sale. Realtors and brokers pay membership dues to access their local MLS database.
Though it may seem like a modern development, the concept of a multiple listing service dates back to the late 1800s. In those times, real estate agents periodically met to share information about the properties they had for sale. Over time, this information sharing took place via books or index cards and then eventually via computer, as it still does today.
Sharing property listings on the MLS makes it possible for small real estate offices to compete with large, franchised firms. Rather than only being able to show clients the listings their own office represents, this cooperation allows brokers and agents to access the listings of the other agents in their region, and vice versa.
If you would like to see live listings in the Los Cabos area visit our website at ckcaborealty.com. Or send us a message and we can prepare listings that fit your exact wants and needs. Let us do the work for you.
