IRES Response To REcolorado Offer
“The majority of our consideration of this offer focused on the ultimate impact on our customers. We heard from many of you and sincerely appreciate your input. We heard you loud and clear and understand you value the philosophy and company culture of IRES:
-Our customer service is top notch. A recent satisfaction survey of IRES users revealed 92% are either Extremely Satisfied or Satisfied.
-Although IRES is a for-profit company, by design, our profits are reinvested back into the system to benefit customers
-We believe in cooperative data sharing to benefit brokers, appraisers and their clients
-We are responsive and nimble
-Our array of services and system features are unparalleled
-We believe competition is good, healthy and spawns innovation”
I think everyone thought it would go this way. Although I think this is far from over.
Also, not shy about throwing a bit of shade at REColorado and Matrix are they?
I like the reaction from IRES. It’s definitely a “no” but with a caveat that says “let’s talk”.
Tom and I encountered this in the mid Atlantic. Each of us/all of us have the best system. Why should we give up what we have worked so hard to create?
But when we all (9 MLS’ representing 43 Associations) sat down together, we determined we had so much in common. Definitely some awkward moments, a few uncomfortable bells rung. But we stayed focused on the larger issue of broker and agent profitability and relevance.
Smart people will find a way to get there. Kirby and Lauren are very smart.
I really struggle with the relative importance of competition in the MLS space. Is there a “real” benefit of having multiple MLS’s serving the same area? Real Estate industry should prioritize solving for technology “scale disadvantages” (e.g. bpp, upstream, seo, etc) imho.