CARMLS hot again

The Rogers Board of Realtors officially had Financial Business Systems equipment reinstalled at its offices Jan. 20 after voting to offer both FBS and CARMLS to its members. About 90 percent of the Rogers offices, according to estimates by several Realtors, have CARMLS up and running but are still using FBS.

A nasty debate over whether to keep CARMLS — Cooperative Arkansas Realtors Multiple Listing Services Inc. of Little Rock — has torn the Northwest Arkansas MLS apart. Many members of Rogers’ board say the new computer system is difficult to use and data conversion problems have made prospecting impossible.

Most members of the Metro, or Fayetteville-Springdale board, and Bentonville/Bella Vista board prefer CARMLS and want to keep that network.

But it looks to us like the fuss may be spreading.

Several Bentonville/Bella Vista board members have made overtures to join the Rogers board because they’re unhappy with CARMLS. The agents favoring FBS apparently aren’t worried about legal fallout because they say at least having CARMLS on, whether or not it’s being used, is in compliance with its contract.

We’re told there definitely will be a vote toward the end of 1999, when the Rogers’ board contract with CARMLS expires, to see which direction the organization goes. Until then, we think one Fayetteville-based agent asked a pertinent question:

“Shouldn’t we be trying to sell real estate to customers and not multi-list systems to each other?”