Real estate data to go live soon

A new regional listing service will soon make searching for a house, condominium or even a business location in Southwest Florida a little easier.

Eight Realtors associations have already signed data-sharing contracts with the new Florida Gulf Coast Alliance, said Bill Dryburgh, president of the multiple listing service of the Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port Association of Realtors.

Of these, the Fort Myers and Cape Coral associations have already started using MLS Alliance, a regional multiple listing software supplied by eNeighborhoods Inc., a real estate marketing firm based in Boca Raton.

Local Realtors should have the new service by late October, Dryburgh said. Other Realtors associations that have signed contracts and should "go live" in the coming months are Naples, Englewood, Venice, Sarasota and Bonita Springs-Estero.

"We're solid from Sarasota on down," Dryburgh said.

The Alliance is essentially a regionwide MLS. It marks the logical evolution of a real estate marketing concept that became popular in the 1970s and '80s. An MLS is an association of real estate agencies who agree to share listings in order to increase the volume of properties they have available to sell. They agree to share the expenses of running the service, along with the commissions.

"The value to the home buyer and the home seller is that more eyes will see their listings ... and the more eyes that see it, the more chance of selling the property," said Dryburgh, whose day job is as agent for Berson Realty Group in Punta Gorda.

He estimates about 1,800 agents work for the various members of the Port Charlotte-Punta Gorda-North Port Realtors. But once all eight Realtors organizations are using the software, about 42,000 agents will be able to view listings from Naples to Sarasota.

Dryburgh added that he expects a few Realtors associations will eventually join the alliance. Associations in Tampa and St. Petersburg have expressed some interest. Of the organizations south of Sarasota, the main holdouts are DeSoto, Sanibel Island and Marco Island.

Dryburgh added that he plans to visit the Marco Island Realtors next week to sell them on the program.

"Once we learned about it, we jumped right on board. It's a natural for Southwest Florida," said Jo Carter, president of the Naples Area Board of Realtors. "We already work together a lot because we deal in a lot of similar properties. We all list waterfront properties and this is an area that likes resort living."

The new service "gives us more ways of finding the right product for our clients," Carter said.

The Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port Association of Realtors is unusual in that it has two volunteer boards of directors, each with its own officers, elected annually. One board runs the MLS, the other runs all other association activities.

Dryburgh said that he began promoting the idea of a regionwide MLS soon after he took office in January. He added that his initial vision was for a membership of just four associations -- the local Realtors, plus Cape Coral, Fort Myers and DeSoto.

The response from Cape Coral and Fort Myers was so immediate and enthusiastic that these associations were also able to take a leadership role in promoting the new concept. DeSoto has yet to declare its interest, Dryburgh said.

"Bill had the idea and has been the central person getting all the information out to everyone," Carter said.

The Florida Association of Realtors has run a statewide MLS, called MLS Advantage, for several years. But is hasn't achieved much acceptance, largely because of software compatibility issues.

Conversely, the eNeighborhoods software has the obvious advantage of being easy to use. "You can select all the listings, or just a certain area," Dryburgh explained.

For example, an agent looking for house listing in Englewoood is only a few clicks away from adding all the listings in nearby Venice to the mix.

"It's also going to be a boon to commercial real estate, in that is makes it easier to look at comparable properties in surrounding areas," Dryburgh said. Determining a listing price for a commercial building is often much harder than pricing a house or condo, for the simple reason that there may be no similar properties within the immediate area. The best option is to then look at something similar in a neighboring community. The eNeighborhoods software will simplify these comparisons.

By BOB FLISS

Charlotte Business Editor