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A Virtual Office Website (VOW) is a web site that is used to conduct business activities. One example is a VOW used as 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. Also see Virtual company.


Features

The VOW allows the public to: #provide contact information #agree to become a bona fide customer / client #get a password protected private account #describe property interest(s) #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,
realtor Real estate agents and real estate brokers are people who represent sellers or buyers of real estate or real property. While a broker may work independently, an agent usually works under a licensed broker to represent clients. Brokers and agent ...
s 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 policy around the recommendations of the
National Association of Realtors The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is an American trade association for those who work in the real estate industry. it had over 1.5 million members, making it the largest trade association in the United States including NAR's institute ...
. The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors in September 2005 over the VOW policy, which they deemed as anti-competitive. , the VOW policy has been replaced by a new Internet Listing Display policy created by the National Association of
Realtor Real estate agents and real estate brokers are people who represent sellers or buyers of real estate or real property. While a broker may work independently, an agent usually works under a licensed broker to represent clients. Brokers and agent ...
s. On May 27, 2008, NAR and the U.S. Department of Justice reached a favorable settlement, concluding a two-year DOJ investigation (followed by two and a half years of litigation) regarding NAR's multiple listing policy as it pertained to the display of listings from the MLS on brokers' virtual office Web sites, or VOWs.


See also

* Internet Listing Display (ILD) – an abandoned policy that promised to replace VOW and IDX * Internet Data Exchange (IDX) – an older multiple-listing policy also being replaced by the ILD *
Real Estate Transaction Specification Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS) is a deprecated data standard that was used by the real estate industry in Canada and the United States to facilitate the exchange of data. RETS was launched in 1999 by the National Association of Realtors ...
(RETS) * Multiple listing service (MLS) *
Real estate trends A real estate trend is any consistent pattern or change in the general direction of the real estate industry which, over the course of time, causes a statistically noticeable change. This phenomenon can be a result of the economy, a change in mor ...
* Virtual office – for virtual business address or virtual offices


References

{{reflist Internet search engines