As a consumer, my perception of the MLS is that it was started in the 1980’s as a tool for realtors to put in and share listings, and for the NAR to get real estate sales data. This data is made available to DataQuick, and also analyzed by NAR economist David Lereah, and published.

The MLS was made for the NAR and realtors to use, and not for Joe Q Public to get real estate data. It is private property of the NAR members. Nobody is entitled to information of a database owned by a private membership. It is not a public access database.

Who would support or fund a public access database? Why would anyone want to pay for that?

If you want to know what’s going on in real estate, get in touch with a good realtor and they can keep you posted. I gave the name of such a realtor once, but will not get him involved here again, because another realtor got real jealous and called him names. But there is a very good realtor here who published the MLS analysis every month. Go back through the forums, and you will find it.