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n certain European countries, most notably in Spain, MLS companies have
started up in most of the popular vacation home destinations, including
Costa del Sol, the Costa Brava, etc. These companies tend to be privately
owned and provide MLS access to any real estate agent paying for membership.
Real estate agents pay subscription fees to an MLS company which then allow
property listings to be uploaded onto their servers. Also, all subscribing
real estate agents create a property search link on their own websites which
links directly to the MLS service. Thus, any site visitor to any of the
subscribing agents' sites will be able to find *all* properties listed on
the MLS servers, even though they are visiting the website of a single
agent. In effect, every single subscribing real estate agent appears to be
offering exactly the same properties for sale, not unlike the situation with
IDX systems in the United States.
When buyers use the internet to find property, often using Google, the
search results usually provide a list of real estate agents' websites in the
locality which is being searched. The buyer clicks through the various
websites and starts browsing properties of interest, although every site
visited is offering the same properties because they are all linked to the
same MLS server.
The buyer then has to choose an agent (again, not very different from
elsewhere), but it does force the buyer to make a decision, since all agents
in the area have access to all properties and the seller's agent will
benefit regardless of who brings the buyer, again very like the US.
Although there are currently no regulations in Europe in relation to MLS, it
may be a matter of time before its use may be viewed as a restrictive
practice designed to benefit real estate agents, rather than consumers.