Albemarle Area Association of Realtors (AAAR) announced Thursday that it will join the North Carolina Regional MLS (NCRMLS) as a cooperative member.
AAAR will continue to operate as a distinct entity, but it will receive services from NCRMLS. This partnership expands NCRMLS’s services to a total of 389 municipal areas across 41 counties, representing 47% of the entire state of North Carolina. This is an increase of 28 cities and 10 counties.
In addition, NCRMLS has added roughly 500 real estate professionals to the number of people it represents, bringing the total to 10,800.
This is the NCRMLS’s second sizable expansion in the past few months. In August, it announced new alliances with Johnston County Association of Realtors, Orange Chatham Association of Realtors and MLS of Goldsboro.
NCRMLS’s announcement comes as numerous MLSs across the country are consolidating, with the total number of Realtor associations and MLSs declining in 2020, despite an overall rise in the number of realtors. One of the largest examples in recent years is the 2017 formation of Bright MLS, which combined several smaller organizations in the Mid-Atlantic region.
In a statement made Thursday, NCRMLS CEO Daniel Jones said that the “new cooperation reduces the costs and headaches of belonging to multiple MLSs for more NC Realtors and appraisers. When it comes to doing business across NC markets, you end up with multiple membership fees, rules, vendors, IDX fees, administrators, staffs and MLS databases. All of this is frustrating and confusing for Realtors and appraisers,” according to Inman which first reported the news.
NCRMLS and AAAR hope that this new relationship will help streamline the process for members of the Realtor association.
AAAR CEO Coleen Curtis said in a statement that the partnership will not only expand their market territory, but improve the efficiency of data entry and searches.
