MLS Facilitates Cooperative Sales: MLS is not advertising. It’s quite literally a “market maker” – a means of creating an orderly, efficient market of listed properties. Thanks to the MLS, property owners can enjoy a more active and productive marketplace for buying and selling real property. But that’s not all. Just as important is the fact that the MLS gives listing brokers a means to share compensation on the sale of listed property. When broker-participants submit a listing to MLS, they invite the cooperation of other participants and offer to share a part of any resulting commission with the successful cooperating broker.

The successful cooperating broker earns what’s offered in the MLS by finding the buyer and by “procuring” the offer that results in a successful transaction, or, put another way, by starting the “unbroken” series of events that leads to the sale or lease of the property. 

Without MLS, buyers would have no feasible way to scan an up-to-date list of available properties for sale in their market. And sellers would have no viable means of putting their property in front of all the potential buyers searching in their market.

The general public benefits, too – and not just because of the availability of current listings. The MLS also creates historical sales data, which is important in tracking sales trends and valuing property.