I recently posed the question about whether the real estate industry needs another social networking web site, and got only one yes vote, from a colleague in Albuquerque.

I can understand the concern.  On some level I agree with those who said we really don’t need such a site. 

First of all, how many blogs can you have?  I try to make a consistent and meaningful contribution to this one, but I have three or four others that I’m either a main author or co-author on, and really one is plenty.

Secondly, I’m sure that from the point of view of someone with forty or eighty posts invested in ActiveRain, thinking that some other site will start to get well positioned for real estate topics is not a great prospect.

Now having said all that, I’m still itching to do some development on the State of California or National level, and so what I envision putting together is a site where each user will get a blog when they sign up that they can use, but which will be centered around a national database of real estate listings (similar to Point2NLS or ZMls).

Assuming this itch continues, the roll-out order will look something like:

Phase I (Alpha Release — Early Adopters)

• Set up the blogging software, and the author’s blog.
• Site design outline — show where the pieces will go.
• Make blogs available to early adopters.  (Email if interested).  

Phase II (Implement Listing Display and Search – Full Release)

• Implement the listing entry and display.
• Implement listing search.
• Improve the user profile page.

Phase III (Enhancements)

• Bug fixes and incremental improvements.
• Integrate sponsored IHomefinder-integrated search on back end.  ($)
• Integrate vFlyer support.
• Make it profitable in other ways, while retaining user base by hanging onto basic:

• Free blogs
• Free user profiles
• Free listings

Writing a National MLS.  How hard can it be? 

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