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Real Estate Dictionary:

Virtual Office Website (VOW)

Internet site created and operated by a real estate Broker to attract potential home buyers. The site usually allows users to search current listings on the Multiple Listing Service and contact an Agent through the Internet. The broker may or may not have a physical office in addition to the website.
Example: Van decided to go high-tech when he formed his real estate brokerage company. Instead of setting up an office like most brokers, he created a website providing users access to the multiple listing service. When someone responded with interest in one of the listings found on his virtual office website, he would refer that person to another broker and collect a piece of the commission for the referral.

 
 
Wikipedia: Virtual Office Website

A Virtual Office Website (VOW) is a real estate property search site allowing the public to conduct searches of approved Multiple Listing Service properties in a given area under certain conditions.

Features

The VOW allows the public to:

  1. provide contact information
  2. agree to become a bona fide customer / client
  3. get a password protected private account
  4. describe property interest(s)
  5. and then conduct searches of all available Multiple Listing Service properties in a certain area.

Site users have to provide personal information before they can actually look at the listings. Also, Realtors who use VOW can choose to “opt out” from the local Multiple Listing Service, which means that these Realtors’ properties will only be displayed to people who have signed in with the VOW.

The benefit to Realtors is that registered users of their VOW web site become customers under contract. Registered users gain the benefit of more detailed information about each property and can generally see all available properties.

Regulation

Certain rules apply to the real estate companies ability to display each detail about a property, these "display rules" are set by the Multiple Listing Service which generally forms it policy around the recommendations of the National Association of Realtors.

The National Association of Realtors, which created the VOW policy, is under an ongoing antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, which deemed the VOW policy as anti-competitive.

As of early 2006, the VOW policy has been replaced by a new Internet Listing Display policy created by the National Association of Realtors.

See also

References


 
 

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Copyrights:

Real Estate Dictionary. Dictionary of Real Estate Terms. Copyright © 2004 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Virtual Office Website" Read more

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