Will consumers find more doors open to listings directly?

Raise your hand if you've found yourself in this scenario: You're driving with your buyer-client on a property tour. You're following a judiciously-prepared route comprised of property listings in your client's stated price range. You're both chatting about likes/dislikes of the morning's "best of" tour when you turn a corner and there's a yard with a for sale sign. For some reason, the property isn't on your list. Then your client says, "oh!, what about that one! It's like the bay windows we loved from that house on Cedarbrook but with the acreage and back bay view we adored from the one on Canyon Rim. Can we see it?"

If your Suprakey works with the lockbox, no problem. You just have to manage the unscheduled drop-in with the property owner. But it might also help to get the showing information, financials and history from the MLS listing so you can fulfill your role as the knowledgeable area expert.

With a wireless card and handheld or laptop, you can fire up the computer and login directly to the MLS and get the property information yourself. Or, you can call your assistant or hit up a buddy on the up-desk to look up the information for you. ("Oh, and while you're at it, Sam, would you mind also seeing what else is in the area in the next price range? Looks like my client is really liking this subdivision. I owe ya.")

If Dash GPS has it's way, you may soon be able to get that info direct to your GPS with the push of a button. The video below shows a demo of their upcoming web-enabled GPS using a programming interface to a third-party database. (The demo below links to Zillow.)

Agent-hissing aside for a moment about the accuracy of Zestimates, some of you might see the potential here. And, despite my scenario-building above, I dont' mean only the potential benefits to agents.

Given time, it's in the realm of possibilities that Adam Smith's invisible hand will find increasing opportunities for "MLS-like" functionality direct to the consumers via mobile platforms such as GPS. At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, Dash Navigation reps Mark Currie and Mark Williamson, not only demonstrate the possibility of pulling basic property information such as: list price, last sold date, last sold price, amenities and square footage, but they also discuss the functionality of mining other databases. For example, finding scheduled open houses "nearby" at the punch of a button. (Fast forward to about 6:30 in the video below.)