With over 27 years of experience in the real estate industry, vice president of business development at Realtors Property Resource (RPR) Bob Bemis is the prime candidate to discuss the advantages and downfalls of creating a National MLS.
Once nicknamed the “MLS Guy,” Bemis has crafted a broad business perspective from varied experiences, positions and companies throughout his long career.
Bemis will speak during the MLS track at Inman Connect San Francisco on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2017.
We caught up with Bemis to talk about the trends and changes in real estate.
What is one key piece of knowledge that you hope attendees take away from your session?
To understand the difference between the MLS business model and the MLS technology model.
We tend to mix and match the two terms when talking about “the MLS,” but they are two very different concepts, each with its own discussion points.
What do you see as the most important trend or change happening in the industry that those involved with MLSs should be keeping their eye on?
The growing adoption of application program interface (API) based storage and delivery systems.
The Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) is pushing standards forward at an unprecedented pace (bravo!), and the industry is reacting with innovative standardized methods of data access and delivery, which make it possible for new software applications to come to market that could never before get a foothold.
If you could change one thing about the way things are done in real estate, what would it be and why?
I would streamline and standardize the closing process.
Brad Inman has been preaching this for years, and we are inching closer every decade or so. But if I can buy and finance a $100,000 car in an afternoon, why can’t I buy and finance a $100,000 condo in a day, or three days, rather than weeks and then only after signing a mountain of paperwork. It seems to me that a house is far better collateral than an automobile. The process can and must get better. Someday.
