According to the U.S. National Association of Realtors:

In the late 1800s, real estate brokers regularly gathered at the offices of their local associations to share information about properties they were trying to sell. They agreed to compensate other brokers who helped sell those properties, and the first MLS was born, based on a fundamental principle that’s unique to organized real estate: Help me sell my inventory and I’ll help you sell yours

“MLS” in the United States is a generic and, therefore, not possible of being trademarked and branded term which has commonly become known to mean “multiple listing service”. There is no single authoritative MLS, and no universal data format. However, in real estate there is a data standard—the Real Estate Transaction Standard—which is being deployed among many MLSes in North America. The many local and private databases, using XML data feeds to input and output agents listings—some of which are controlled by single associations of realtors or groupings of associations (which represent all brokers within a given community or area) or by real estate brokers—are collectively referred to as the MLS because of their data sharing or reciprocal access agreements.

ICIWorld is not an MLS service but we highly recommends it.

We too are brokers but please consider us as a personal marketing and information assistant.

However there is much information that can not be worked through a real estate board type listing service for various reasons.

We believe in the spirit of I will let you sell my listing if you allow me to sell yours is alive and well here with information. Members here for instance allow their listings to be on other brokers web sites.  We call it widgets. So a member can provide all this information from their own website in a way that they get the calls.

The advantage to the public is this “what is better marketing exposure, to have your property on one website or on one thousand websites, instantly?” ICIWorld is providing a sophisticated database that makes this all happen.

Exclusive listings, FSBO’s, properties coming for sale, someone says “I want to sell my property but I do not want to give you a listing but I will pay you a commission” FSBO’s are like this, buyers and what they want and much more.

In most jurisdictions if you do not place an address or identify a property, you can network information. It is this Have and Want type information that is the focus of ICIWorld.

However because we only allow licensed real estate brokers and salespeople to join the service they also advertise their real estate board listings.

ICIWorld has become a real estate information listing service for the world.

ICIWorld provides global real estate broker database services for licensed real estate brokers and salespeople.

The concept is the networking of Haves and Wants of real estate opportunities as well as other advertising they may wish to do.

Haves are the properties for sale and for lease.

Wants are what people are looking to buy or lease.

In most states and provinces, if you do not identify a property, you can network that information as an opportunity.  However if a salesperson identifies a property or gives an address in any shape or form, the salesperson must have the consent of the owner in writing.

History: CCIM’s and others in commercial real estate have since the beginning of selling real estate talked about opportunities that they know about but were not in writing. If another broker or a buyer was interested it is recommended one put an agreement in place first before showing the property or before divulging the address of that property. Once confidentiality agreements were in place and a listing agreement, then the parties would proceed to show the property and endeavour to get an offer and sell it.   This all started from information before a listing was signed.

ICIWorld has been providing a global real estate broker database of networking services since 1994.

75% of the information on ICIWorld is of an exclusive nature. Agreements have to be put in place before divulging the address, or identifying the property, before showing.

So networking of information such as Property coming for sale is a piece of information that can help trigger leads for a member and once the salesperson gets a listing signed, then he calls the person who inquired about the property to make arrangements to show it. One does not divulge the address or identify the property unless one has the consent of the owner in writing.

You can see testimonials here of fifty pages of deals started on ICIWorld that were not on real estate boards.

We now as of 2014 are exploring opportunities for real estate boards to adopt this service. With a nominal yearly fee to grow the service the rewards are substantial.

We believe it can unlock many more opportunities for licensed real estate salespeople to:

1. generate business that can not be worked on a real estate board
2. provide services that lead to getting properly signed listings to place on MLS
3. instant circulation to the industry on opportunities on a timely basis and in real time
4. provide networking connections through the Haves and Wants that identify people with whom one might be able to do business with.
5. bring the opportunities of fsbo’s back into realm of organized real estate
6. more

As long as a member is a licensed real estate broker or salesperson then we provide services.

A special search page is set up to suit your real estate board.

1. See samples www.ccimcanada.com
2. can be totally designed to fit the theme, motif of your existing website, colors, fonts, etc.
3. as much or as little information may be displayed as per your requirements and/or requests.
4. since this is cutting edge services, many changes can be made at will easily.
5. other changes that take extra programming can be made as well.

Guidelines are to be discussed.  For example:

1. what listings are to be displayed or not displayed
2. see sample matrix
3. special introductory real estate board specials.
4. Haves and Wants and real estate board listings can be advertised.
5. how long listings appear
6. how long they are given a certain status
7. how timely information is displayed, ie: some may only want listings less than 30 days old to be displayed.
8. etc.

Call anytime to discuss and for a demo.

We believe this can easily be a world real estate information service.

Just add a button on the home page called Haves and Wants.

There are some other things about the placing of information that every member must be aware of.  Every practitioner is licensed and all have the local laws and regulations of a licensed real estate salesperson that must be followed.