Realtors Revel in IDX Sales Tool: NDCC Lets Home Buyers Fly Through MLS Database

Tim Lee helped turn a Realtor into Superman.r

Lee, CEO of Net Design Computer Center Inc., started his Fayetteville company in 1993 at the age of 19 with $50 in his pocket. Today the real estate technology firm has more than 350 Web clients and a service that Lee said attracts an average of 15 million page views per month.r

About one-third of NDCC’s clients are residential Realtors. Lee said their customized sites market every Northwest Arkansas listing worldwide thanks to a speeding-bullet flow of data designed to create traffic and help buyers, sellers and brokers move inventory.r

Lee declined to say how much is in his pocket now.r

What is clear is NDCC’s unique Internet data exchange (IDX) systems are giving house hunters — and the Realtors who serve them — the sector’s equivalent of x-ray vision via a sophisticated network of market information.r

Realtors such as Eric Hutchinson, an executive broker at Hutchinson Realty in Bella Vista, said his sales “have definitely increased” as a result of hiring NDCC.r

Hutchinson said integrating IDX technology into his Superman-theme www.superhutch.com site has already paid for itself several times over.r

“In January I had 157 monthly visits,” Hutchinson said. “Last month I had over 7,000 … We have nothing but great things to say about Tim and his company. Our traffic has increased expeditiously.”r

Lee’s IDXes are linked directly into the Northwest Arkansas Multiple Listing Service (NWAMLS), a compilation of active local listings by area-wide brokers.r

As agents enter new information into the database, NDCC’s servers collect hourly updates on everything from price reductions to new listings. That data is then pulled out by member sites for a variety of criteria searches used to cull data into desired results.r

Lee said he’s not found another real estate search tool in the market that’s directly tapped into the MLS, although some others do incorporate periodic downloads from the database. In addition to “pushing this technology into the market,” Lee said his company differentiates itself by providing technical expertise and application upgrades that would cost exponentially more for brokers to brave on their own.r

NDCC in essence allows brokers to be closing one deal while simultaneously selling a potentially infinite amount of other properties worldwide. Lee said the search engines also add an air of professionalism to each business, the value of which is hard to quantify. And brokers can control their home page content with a super-simple administrative control area.r

Lee did say the startup and annual maintenance costs for NDCC service to Realtors are “more than covered” by the sale of one $50,000 home. That’s cheap when calculating the standard 6 percent broker commission and that NDCC spent more than $100,000 to develop its proprietary system and redundancy plans.r

“In the last seven months, we have had 19 million hits, 11.6 million page views and 384,253 visits,” Lee said. “The average Realtor has over 30 pages viewed. The average viewer is looking at 30 pages per site per visit. The consumer is spending a lot of time on the Web site.”r

Hutchinson said his site traffic peaked in July with more than 13,000 visits. He averages 300 site visitors per day.r

Sylvia Hise, office manager and executive broker with Aladdin Realtors in Rogers, has had her NDCC-designed site, www.sylviahise.com, for five years.r

“We’ve had people calling us from all over the United States saying they’ve used our Web site because it is so user-friendly,” Hise said. “I trust that [Lee] is on the cutting-edge.”r

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MLS Pioneerr

Access to all MLS entries was made possible by the Brokerage Reciprocity Agreement that was passed by the National Association of Realtors and put into effect Nov. 8, 2001. NDCC consulted local agents and had its IDX technology sitting ready the same day the agreement was reached.r

“[The agreement] states that you can publicly display every listing in your board’s controlled MLS on the market, without permission from every principal broker,” Lee said. “Brokers have the chance to opt out — but why would they? It doesn’t cost them a dime.”r

Lee said there are an average of 6,000 listings per day in the NWAMLS. The database is owned by brokers belonging to the Metro Area Board of Realtors (Fayetteville and Springdale) and the Bentonville/Bella Vista Board of Realtors. A service contract allows the Siloam Springs Board of Realtors to receive NWAMLS listings for their membership. The Rogers Board of Realtors operates under similar data-sharing agreements.r

Buyers can choose a home on an NDCC-powered Realtor’s site and buy through that agent whether or not the Realtor personally has the property “listed” because of broker reciprocity.r

Buyers can evaluate criteria such as a property’s proximity to certain schools, home and lot size and price, and many times there’s even a virtual tour available. There’s also a trademarked add-on called “Home Watch Technology.”r

Home Watch allows users of NDCC sites to enter desired specifications such as number of bathrooms, location and cost. Then when properties with those features hit the market, the customer is automatically notified with an e-mail directing them back to the Realtor’s site for more information.r

“If a listing is added to the market at 2 p.m. and someone searches for that type of property at 2:01 p.m., it will already be on that site,” Lee said.r

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National Solution?r

NDCC is developing a system called “MLsolution” that was originally submitted in December 2002 to the regional board of Realtors. The company and 19 other national vendors are vying to upgrade the NWAMLS with newer technology.r

One of the competitors is existing NWAMLS vendor Quest Technologies Inc. of Boston, Mass. The NWAMLS pays Quest $240,000 annually for its existing service. But Lee said the current system is out of date for the industry and could be far more robust.r

“We spent 10 years developing commercial sites,” Lee said. “Over the last two years, we’ve created this vision that specialized on real estate. The MLS is what we see as being the future of our company.”r

Janet Braden, chairman of the management team at NWAMLS LLC, said the board is reviewing candidates a second time and is probably a year away from a decision. The selection will be made by NWAMLS and the Rogers Board of Realtors. Their goal is to coordinate as many boards regionally to be on the same system as possible.r

“We were prepared to present to our membership,” Braden said. “Rogers, however, wasn’t to the point where they were ready to make that decision. So we had to drop back because we are working hand in hand at this point. We don’t want to hurt this market …r

“We wanted our agents to be aware of the options that weren’t out there four and a half years ago. Technology expands exponentially.”r

Lee said NDCC is focused on the local market at present, but it’s done presentations to national companies and a major rollout is in the works. In the early days, he created sports and musical band Web sites, the Northwest Arkansas Regional Directory site www.nwaarkansas.com and other sites for travel, auctions and e-commerce.r

NDCC’s most recent products include the residential-focused www.nwasubdivisions.com and www.lease2you.com, an online commercial lease management site.r

Lee said he hopes his service, which includes upgrades on the 15th of every month, continual training and even the sharing of successful marketing tips, will put the firm’s IDX on top.r

“It’s not something that becomes antiquated,” Lee said. “So even if someone wanted to become a competitor, we are constantly offering [customers] more for the same price.”r

NDCC employs three computer programmers and plans on hiring three more in the near future. By Jan. 1, 2004, he hopes to add four regional sales representatives to handle customer accounts.r