While websites that offer consumers the ability to search real estate listings via Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds have been around for years, the push to provide those listings on social media is gathering steam.
N-Play, a company that offers a suite of real estate-related applications on Facebook, is the latest to offer an app for IDX listings search on agent and broker Facebook pages. Today, the company announced it had signed up the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors (MIBOR) and 19 other multiple listing services to offer the app to members. For existing markets, the cost of the app is $9.95 per month or $49.95 per year.
Another player in this space has been Los Angeles-area software company AppLa.Bz which has developed a similar application and signed up Northern Colorado MLS Information and Real Estate Services (IRES) and Lisle, Ill.-based MLS Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED).
"I was pleased to see Russ Bergeron of MRED make the recent announcement about their IDX Facebook product. It helps introduce the industry to this new growth area," said Jeff Gellman, director of MLS services for N-Play, in a statement.
"It’s our position that if done right, IDX on Facebook is a killer application for agents. It not only attracts and engages consumers who are on Facebook in viral numbers, it repositions search focus around the agent and on building client relationships."
Last year, N-Play rolled out a free app that allows consumers on Facebook to search for agents by location and expertise who have added their profiles to the directory. In order to have access to the new IDX app, agents must first join the directory.
N-Play’s Facebook app is compliant with IDX rules and regulations, the company said. The National Association of Realtors has been working for several years on a policy for the display of IDX listings on social media sites but has yet to make a final decision. The trade group’s MLS policy committee will reconsider the policy at NAR’s annual meeting in November.
"If the industry is interested in how IDX should be properly implemented on Facebook, they should take a close look at (N-Play’s) solution," said Tim Dain, executive director at Southwest Illinois Regional MLS, in a statement. Southwest Illinois Regional is one of the 20 MLSs that have signed up to provide their IDX listing feeds to N-Play’s Facebook app.