To:
All Directors, Committee Members, and Executives of:
Bismarck Mandan Board of Realtors
318 West Apollo Ave.
Bismarck, ND 58503
I am writing this letter to bring to your attention, something I believe is unfair to our clients and customers that requires immediate attention by our board of directors. I would like to terminate FlexMLS as the official MLS site of the Bismarck Mandan Board of Realtors (BMBOR) and all of its components, including but not limited to, the public site: www.bismarckmandanhomes.com and replace it with a more user-friendly MLS website and program that benefits BMBOR Members as a group. To where the members have a vote on the final company/website that will be used, whether it's going back to interface or something new.
I believe the overall direction of the public website should be based on how the final consumer is able to search for and find properties listed by agents, as a whole and not as individuals, and with ease of searching. There are clients with multi-millions of dollars of property who place their trust in us, to market said properties for them, and if that marketing is deficient and incomplete we will lose consumer confidence within our industry. Being progressive is great, but it must be done with no interruptions to people's investments and compromising of trust with our agents/industry. In my opinion, this issue has gone on far too long and with far too many complaints from the consumer side and the agent side, and now agents are paying the price. More importantly, our clients are paying a high price, due to search option inadequacies on the public site to find the exact properties they are searching for on the provided site we collectively promote.
I am requesting the current website/contract be canceled and switched to a different company, and done so within a timely manner. In addition, we are requesting the BMBOR continue to promote the www.bismarckmandanhomes.com site once it is with a new company and the issues have been addressed. This letter is also to ensure our elected board officials are representing the majority of members when it comes to these concerns.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Patrick Koski
Enclosed is a list of membership support
