Effective Feb. 1, 2018, MLS participant brokers have more control over where their listings are sent from the MLS. Up until now, the only destinations where MLS fed listings for public display were sent to were member IDX sites and Realtor.com. Listings can now be included in a MLS feed to Zillow by using a checkbox setting to “Enable Feed” on the new Broker Distribution (Syndication) Preference page.
Note – At this time, the only listing feed that will be controlled by the new “Opt-In” feature is The Zillow Group (which includes Zillow, Trulia, Streeteasy, Hotpads, and Realestate.com). Other destinations may be added to the dashboard if approved by the MLS Board of Directors.
How “Opt-In” Works
Once the MLS broker chooses to Enable Feed, with additional dashboard settings, they can also choose whether to send all listings by default or whether to defer the choice to the agent associated with a listing. For example, if a broker enables the feed but chooses not to send listings by default (by unchecking “Send listings by default”) they can select “Agent can override” to allow their agents to determine whether each of their listings will be included in the feed. Selecting Agent can override will cause a Broker Listing Distribution Options section to appear on the last tab, “Broker Distribution”, during listing entry. The agent can simply check the box beside the feed on the “Broker Distribution” tab when entering the listing in the MLS. If the broker has not enabled Agent can Override, this checkbox will not appear during listing entry.
1) Brokers must login to the MLS as their own login ID. Alternately, broker admins (with appropriate login access level) can login and change this setting.
2) Click MENU at the top left below the red MLS logo.
3) Scroll down to PREFERENCES section
4) At the bottom of PREFERENCES, click BROKER DISTRIBUTION
5) Zillow appears in the NAME column
6) Check the box below ENABLE FEED.
7) “Send listings by default” should be automatically selected when the Zillow feed is enabled.
8) A Broker can choose to allow the agent to override the broker’s setting to send all brokerage listings to Zillow. If you plan to defer to your agents to choose which listings to send, you may choose to uncheck “Send listings by default” in the previous step. If the “Agent can override” box is checked, the agent will have a “Zillow” checkbox on the last tab of listing entry, “Broker Distribution”, for each listing. If “Agent can override” is NOT checked by the broker, the Zillow checkbox will simply not appear at all for the agent on the listing entry screen.
9) If the broker is head broker for the company, they will have an additional option at the bottom left labeled “Set for all Offices in this Company.” Otherwise that box will not appear.
10) Click the SAVE button at bottom right to save changes. It won’t show a confirmation page. The SAVE button will very briefly change to “SAVED” and the red text above the SAVE button that says “There are unsaved changes” will disappear.
