I started work very early this morning and discovered that the San Diego MLS, Sandicor, had been taken over by another entity. In the beginning, it looked as if someone had forgotten to renew a domain name and Sandicor had been taken over by a paid link site. An hour or so later, though, this error message showed up and still sits there at this writing:
Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (12)
In a rush to get an offer written, we relied on Google and San Diego Tax Assessor records to get the job done. That strategy fortunately worked.
In the meantime, no new listings can be shared and those that go pending are largely unreported. And I am left wondering:
What would our world look like with no MLS?
To find listings, I would have to drive neighborhoods to find signs–and hope that if they were pending, a sign rider would show that change in status. If a buyer were looking for a certain type of home, I would check our own listings first–and then start dialing other San Diego Realtors to see if they might have what we are seeking.
Both buyers and sellers would be forced to deal with real estate professionals for homes on the market. And for all intents and purposes, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and other aggregators would quickly be out of business–as they, too, rely on MLS reporting to furnish their sites.
With no MLS, we as Realtors would be thrown back a century in our practices.
I’m not quite ready to start driving streets or calling other agents for inventory reports, but I am anxiously awaiting the return of Sandicor to its active status~