What Is a VOW?
by John Fleming
VOW stands for Virtual Office Website. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) defines a VOW as follows:
VOW means a Participant's [real estate company's] Internet website (and, where authorized, websites of non-principal brokers and sales licensees affiliated with MLS Participants) through which consumers receive real estate brokerage services, including the opportunity to search for MLS data subject to the Participant's oversight, supervision, and responsibility.
The above means that brokers who have their own Websites with listing information derived from any Multiple Listing Service may now allow their buyers to access this information if they have a valid client relationship with these buyers.
For years the exclusivity of information has been a mechanism for Realtors to prevent unauthorized persons from accessing and selling information, but now almost all active listing information can be made available to clients, subject to certain restrictions. What can't be made available are the following:
Expired, withdrawn, pending, or sold listings
Compensation offered by other MLS participants
The type of listing agreement, i.e. exclusive right to sell or exclusive agency
Sellers' and/or occupants' names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses
Instructions or remarks intended for cooperating brokers only, such as those related to showing or security concerns.
Listing brokers have the right to make any or all of their listings unavailable for VOWs. If sellers tell their broker that they don't want their listing made available, the listing broker must abide by that request.
Clients who want to retrieve information from a VOW must register and declare that they have a client relationship with the broker. They gain access through a password, which must be renewed or changed periodically. Clients may view, retrieve, or download current active listings only. VOWs mean that more information is available to the public than ever before.
The foregoing policies were adopted by the NAR Board of Directors on May 17, 2003 and must be implemented no later than January 1, 2004.
The NAR's definition of a VOW is limited to its function as a data base. My definition is a little different. I can best explain it through a fictional example.
Many years ago Bill Buckaroo had an idea. He had had some experience selling his father's ranch, his cousin's farm, and his sister's house in town. Why not use it to help others sell real estate? He began by riding horseback door-to-door in his community, convincing his neighbors to let him sell their ranches, lots, and houses for them. Then he got an office and put a desk in it. Then he got a telephone. He started to feel more businesslike, so he ran a few ads in the paper. People called him on the phone, came to his office, talked to him. He took them out to the country, showed them a farm, then another farm, finally sold them one.
Then he got a new idea. "I'm getting too busy. I need some help." So he hired his daughter-in-law Frances and had her show the properties while he stayed in the office answering the phone and doing the paperwork. Gradually he became so successful he hired 20 other agents and had to rent a big building on the corner of First and Main, right across from the bank. Profits went up and so did expenses. Now he had 20 telephones, 20 desks, and 25 chairs (4 for clients and 1 for a secretary). Soon business got so good he ran out of space and had to rent another office on the other side of town and put in 20 more agents with their corresponding desks, chairs, and telephones.
Multiplying Bill's experience by hundreds, and then thousands, suggests how real estate became an established industry, complete with state regulation, licensing, educational requirements, and enforcement mechanisms.
It was all built on the premise that more and bigger buildings meant more and better service to clients. Offices gave a sense of security and professionalism to both agents and clients. Agents needed a place to report to work. Clients viewed the building and its furnishings as symbols of the company's success.
In the 21st Century, something drastic happened. The telephone wires of Bill's office now connected his office with the world through the Internet. E-mail displaced snail mail. Data, the bread and butter of the real estate industry, was starting to become less exclusive. Clients were becoming more demanding. They wanted access to more information, and they wanted it fast. They would rather do the preliminary research on properties themselves than come to the office and have an agent do it. They also wanted to do research on the agent before they went to see her or him.
Bill recognized that many of his people were spending less and less time in the office and more time on their cell phones and computers. He closed his branch office and rented a smaller space for his main office. He installed a lot of electronic equipment--computers, Broadband high-speed Internet lines, multi-media hardware. He created a Virtual Office Website, through which he could stay in contact with all his agents, and through which they could all get access to inventory from Multiple Listing Services all across the continent. Additionally, they could provide their clients with services such as title insurance, property management, loan information, and escrow through the VOW.
More and better service for real estate clients now meant fewer and smaller offices but wider and more efficient electronic networking. With a small staff and only a few desks, Bill rode his horse off into the 21st century sunrise, his office clipped to his belt, his agents and clients at his fingertips.
