Rival data licensing initiatives from analytics providers Realtors Property Resource and CoreLogic have succeeded in gaining traction among multiple listing services representing most of the nation’s Realtors.
As of Feb. 1, National Association of Realtors subsidiary RPR had signed data licensing deals with 616 multiple listing services, commercial information exchanges and Realtor associations nationwide, according to RPR spokesman Reggie Nicolay. RPR’s current contracts cover 908 local associations representing over 865,329 Realtors, he said.
The latest MLS to sign up to send its listing data to RPR is the Greater Tulsa Association of Realtors’ MLS, Northeast Oklahoma Real Estate Services (NORES), which has nearly 3,600 members. North Alabama MLS, which has nearly 3,000 members, and Northwest Louisiana Association of Realtors (NWLAR), which has more than 1,100 members, have also signed up in the last month.
“We have closely followed the development of RPR over the past several years and have seen it evolve into a must-have product for Realtors,” said Mike Cotrill, CEO of the Tulsa association, in a statement. “The broker tools and legislative reports are some of the best I have seen in our industry in quite some time.”
RPR competitor CoreLogic’s Partner InfoNet program has grown to 115 MLS participants representing about 650,000 real estate professionals. Some of the 11 MLSs that joined in the fourth quarter include Northeast Oklahoma Board of Realtors, San Francisco Association of Realtors, Staten Island MLS and Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin.
Both RPR and Partner InfoNet create analytics to sell to third parties, such as lenders and government agencies, based on MLS and public records data. Unlike RPR, however, Partner InfoNet offers MLSs a cut of the revenue generated from such sales with more generous splits for those that provide data on an exclusive basis.
More than 42 percent of Partner InfoNet’s contracts with MLSs are exclusive, according to a CoreLogic spokesman. The company offers exclusive MLS participants up to a 40 percent revenue split and nonexclusive participants up to a 17 percent revenue split.
Earlier this month, CoreLogic announced that its revenue-sharing payments to MLSs through Partner InfoNet had increased 66 percent in 2014 compared to the previous year, exceeding $1 million for the first time.
“The momentum behind Partner InfoNet is undeniable,” said Chris Bennett, general manager of Real Estate Solutions for CoreLogic, in a statement.
“MLS participation continues to climb, which helps increase the accuracy and demand for our risk management products. In turn, revenue-sharing payments continue to grow. Through Partner InfoNet, CoreLogic is working to help increase the health and stability of the American real estate industry.”
In a statement, Kevin King, executive vice president of the Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin, said participating in Partner InfoNet was a “win-win” for the industry and his members.
“[W]e are pleased to contribute to a program that promotes more accurate and reliable decision-making while fairly compensating us for our data,” he said.
RPR does not offer revenue splits, instead opting to offer each of its constituents — agents, brokers, MLSs, associations and appraisers — free specialized tools.
The Realtor-owned company rolled out its first mobile application in October, offering all 1 million-plus Realtors on-the-go access to its parcel-based database of 166 million properties. The app allows all Realtors to search public records, and if their MLS has partnered with RPR, their own MLS data as well. They can also create customizable reports for any property right from their smartphone for their clients.
In May, NAR’s board of directors voted to dip into reserves to boost spending on RPR to $21.9 million a year for the next three years, partially in order to support the release of RPR mobile apps. Between 2009 and 2014, NAR spent a total $98.9 million on RPR, an amount that is projected to rise to $120.8 million by the end of 2015 and $142.7 million by the end of 2016.
In the four years since its launch, RPR has struggled to make money, generating a total of $586,270 in revenue from data analytics as of December 2013.