For decades, competing real estate companies have shared what amounts to their customer lists. Brokers in Baltimore met to swap descriptions of properties long before the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors created what has evolved into a state-of-the-art, electronic home-sales listing.
Now, a debate is brewing in Baltimore and elsewhere over non-Realtor access to multiple listing services -- agents' main tool for linking buyers and sellers.
The notion of any licensed broker or agent using the valuable systems -- other than the members of Realtor boards or associations that maintain them -- remains radical to many in the industry, who say trade associations should limit their services to dues payers.
But some brokers have argued such arrangements restrict competition and do no more than preserve trade associations' membership rosters. Court cases have given non-Realtors access to home sales listings in four states.
Baltimore has become one of the latest arenas in which the controversy is playing out. Earlier this month, a group of black real estate agents and brokers sued the Baltimore board, charging it with antitrust violations and racial discrimination for limiting access.
Many in real estate say they'll closely watch the outcome. Some consider the challenge an early step in an inevitable information revolution that someday will open multiple listings to the public.
In its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the Real Estate Brokers of Baltimore Inc. accused the board of monopolizing real estate sales and discriminating against black real estate brokers, agents and sellers. Because the group is affiliated with the National Association of Real Estate Brokers and not the National Association of Realtors, its members are not eligible to use the local board's multiple listing service.
Many Realtists, as members of the predominantly black association call themselves, are forced to pay more than three times as much in fees -- in order to join both groups -- or face putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage, said an attorney for the group and four real estate brokers who joined the suit as plaintiffs.
The lawsuit stemmed from a failed attempt by a member of Real Estate Brokers to pay a fee to use multiple listing services of Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Information Technologies Inc. (MARIT), which is partially owned by the Baltimore board, without joining the board.
