Idea for Zimlet -- MLS (Multiple Listing Service) zimlet

[mchapman]

Hi,

I think an MLS zimlet would be of use to realtor's and others. Would something like this be possible, or is the MLS system too closed and proprietary?

Mike

[pshah]

If the system is too closed (re: no public API's), there's always good'ole screen scraping. This is kind of how the Google Translator zimlet works. Of course, this is a cat-and-mouse game since the anatomy of the website can change without warning :/

[mchapman]

Someone on this forum has a proto-type MLS zimlet working. It's proprietary code though. I seem to recall an article or blog in the past which dealt with MLS... seemed to mention something about how accessing MLS was only allowed if you belong to MLS. Anyway, it was a long time ago and I truly can't remember much more about it.

Mike

[p24t]

The MLS access is restricted to people with a contract. You firstly must have a broker for whom you're providing the service, and then there is a monthly/quarterly fee for the access. Even then the MLS data is structured differently in different markets. I run a website for a realtor, that's the only reason I know any of this.

You could always grab HTML from realtor.com or something, but I'm not sure how often they update their pages.