Realtors are mounting an effort to participate in the real estate portal business.  The Broker Public Portal will be the national collection of listings, much like realtor.com was designed to be.

To those who thought Zillow had already won, this was welcome news.

All we have to do is build a consumer-facing website with more bells and whistles than Zillow or Trulia, and advertise it coast to coast!  Yahtzee!

Not so fast.

Here is the link to what the Chairman thinks about the Broker Public Portal after two years of work:

http://geekestateblog.com/brokers-support-broker-portal/

An excerpt:

There has been a lot of discussion about the Broker Public Portal’s ability to compete with the existing national portals. Someday we may get there, but that is not our short-term goal today. Our goal is to join in the development of the best national MLS consumer search experience. Some believe we are competing against local MLS consumer websites. but we think that the BPP offers a national reach that is complementary and unprecedented, and that will help brokers and agents dramatically increase their connections with online consumers.

Great – maybe if we don’t mention them by name, and don’t compete with existing national portals, they will just go away!

Zillow is wagging the dog now, and they will determine our destiny.

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