A real-estate agent argues they own listing data as the seller's fiduciary, but once it hits multiple-listing systems, platforms sell it to the highest bidder. Broad syndication increases visibility but strips the agent's control and leaves them liable for inaccurate data. The real issue: who profits from the data, not what's best for the homeowner.
Question becomes this, and you go to the heart of all of this, as a real estate professional, who owns the data? I believe as the person who is the fiduciary, back to our earlier conversation, for the people who want their house sold, that information belongs to me. I'm the one responsible for the accuracy of that information based on all the bylaws and the rules. And frankly, Geico, garbage in, garbage out. I'm the one responsible for the garbage. However, the minute I put that property into the system, which I've been asked and charged to do by the people who need their house sold, who would like it to be seen by the entire marketplace, I've now lost control of the data that I put into the marketplace, which was designed to be seen by only the people who pay to be a part of the marketplace, because the marketplace sold my information to the highest bidder, to all the highest bidders, and now it's out there. So if I, as the fiduciary for my sellers, keep my information back because I don't want it sold to the highest bidder on all these websites who then take it and run with it, I'm still responsible for the bad data. But if I don't get it out there syndicated, my sellers are the ones that are harmed. So at the heart of these control conversations is basically the money. That comes from the data. Very little of these conversations has to do with the person at the heart of the data, which would be the homeowner who selected a fiduciary agent to do what's in their best interest.
