More MLS data troubles for agent matching site HomeLight
At the behest of a local California Realtor association, the recently launched agent matching site HomeLight has pulled multiple listing service data from a Central Coast MLS previously displayed on the site.
The move follows a similar request from the Kirkland, Wash.-based Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) last week.
HomeLight is a referral-based site that claims to match homebuyers and sellers with unbiased real estate agent recommendations based on transaction performance data.
The site launched out of beta on Nov. 14 with $1.5 million in funding in hand from Google Ventures (the venture capital arm of search giant Google), Crosslink Capital, Innovation Endeavors, and several undisclosed angel investors.
Cindy Doll, association executive of the Grover Beach, Calif.-based Pismo Coast Association of Realtors, said she contacted the San Francisco-based site last week after receiving complaints about the use of MLS data on HomeLight.com. The Pismo Coast AOR, which has about 650 members, is one of eight member associations that own the 2,806-member Central Coast Regional MLS (CCRMLS).
"After reviewing the site, I contacted the broker member and asked that he remove our MLS data that is being used to generate statistics, agent photos, etc., on his site because it fails to comply with our MLS rules," Doll said.
"Following my initial review, the site and his membership do not appear to be in compliance with the MLS rules, but I've not yet had an opportunity to make any further determinations. It will soon be carefully reviewed."
Doll said the broker member, Drew Uher, HomeLight's co-founder and CEO, agreed to take down all of CCRMLS' data from the site by end of the day Tuesday, with the exception of data provided by individual agents who had contacted HomeLight.
Doll said she told Uher that he was "not authorized to use the data to create this secondary product and therefore you need to take the data down."
