side trip

I rode down from San Luis Obispo today on a chartered bus. All the way to San Diego to run in the marathon (bad knee and all--another story). Because of the height of the bus and the fact that someone else was driving, I had a chance to see a big chunk of Southern California.

The scale of the development in this state is staggering. New houses, old houses--many older than me--OMG! Big, small, expensive and even some relatively cheap. It's a very mixed array, but only in some respects because the inertia is under way to create one size fits all MLS databases for all that diversity, to go with the one size fits all forms.

Some people see rich diversity and others see the diversity of benefits associated with providing just one size--a least common denominator path to the future of real estate sales.

Of course firms, brokers and agents could provide the personalization and customization that captures the unique elements of properties and individuals, but many seem increasingly enthralled by the convenience of this one size fits all world--you just get on a computer, click on some filtering fields and the rest is easy. Reductionism come to house hunting. The house is merely the sum of the parts--at least those that are described as fields in the MLS database. Sure, the buyers see the houses in person eventually--based on the search filtering. What houses are they NOT seeing? Perhaps that is a more interesting question! How do you know what you're not seeing? The buyers often don't know and, in some cases, neither do the agents.

The MLS system is playing a larger and larger role in creating show lists while taking agents and, in turn, buyers further and further away from the attributes that figure into the experiences of living in a home. How many MLS data fields tell you about those experiences? To restate a common theme here-it may be a fine fit according to data filters, but it is the RIGHT house?

A statewide MLS will contribute to this distorted impression of virtual reality.

What are the benefits of one size fits all solutions (OSFA) and who are those entities who seek them? Back on the main journey next post.