The Man Behind MRIS 2.0: Making Today’s Decisions To Ensure Tomorrow’s Success

When David Charron took over the Metropolitan Regional Information System in 2001, he made a resolution to transform the multiple listing service into the nation’s most innovative one. “MRIS had great bones and lots of potential,” he recalled. “But we were broke, with $750,000 negative cash flow and $7 million in debt.

“There are a lot of moving parts here. When [the MRIS] system hiccups even for a few minutes, it can easily impact $2.5 million in real estate sales,” he said.
Charron led the MLS’s evolution, but not overnight. “It has taken us almost 15 years to get to this point,” he admitted.  
“We are committed to providing the right mix of technology and services that will help our members grow their businesses.”

A strategic thinker and management leader, he quickly learned that his MRIS directors wanted their MLS to be the industry’s leader, offering the best array of tech functionality that an MLS possibly could. “We are, at the very least, the default exchange for cooperation and compensation,” he said. “That carries an enormous responsibility.”
His stint has had highs and lows, both professionally and personally. Serving as a high profile CEO is stressful, but Charron has been comfortable as a fearless decision maker for the MRIS enterprise. His charge is not only to secure its long-term profitability, but to cultivate and ensure its value proposition to the 44,000 MRIS members. 

“We are committed to providing the right mix of technology and services that will help our members grow their businesses.”

SEARCHING FOR THE NEW CEO

“In the late 1990s, I went to work for a couple of 30-somethings after a successful career in the information systems business,” he recalled. “Then MRIS came calling through the recruiter,” he added. “I said ‘no’ to the recruiter.”

Three months later, while staying at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria, Charron noticed a real estate conference on site. “I decided to go in,” he said. “Then I struck up a conversation with a man. I said, ‘I am David Charron.’ He said, ‘I am David Howell. I am the selection committee chair for MRIS. We have been trying to get ahold of you.’ It must have been kismet.” 

The first challenge Charron faced was initiating a major technical conversion in the Rockville-based office. “We literally had to paint a moving train because we had to move from a client-server environment to the Internet environment,” he said.
During those years at MRIS, just into the new millennium, the Internet was not the only explosive industry. A housing boom occurred with vast new home construction and a surge in suburban single-family developments, unlike anything in the region for the past half century. 

Reflecting back, “It wasn’t all great,” he recalled. “But we turned it around pretty quickly. Growing an eclectic employee base in this [regional] melting pot was critical.”

THE FAMILY MAN FROM KENTUKY
Born in Schenectady, New York, Charron’s family moved to Louisville, Kentucky when he was four years old. He followed a private Catholic School track through grammar, high school and eventually Bellarmine University. “Plus I got married when I was 20 years old,” he added. “Jill and I have been together for a long time.”

The Charrons have two daughters born 20 months apart, Julie and Shelley. As an advocate and ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association, Charron was a spokesperson who would share the story about the loss of their younger daughter Shelley at age 34, who bravely fought but tragically lost her 18-year battle with bulimia. 

Knowing that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, Charron was an advocate in the media and at events. “We raised a bunch of money and awareness for what was then, a very private illness,” he explained.

THE MRIS ROLE IN SYNDICATION
One of the tough business questions people ask him is, “What is the MRIS role in syndication?”
“Why do you think it is MRIS’s responsibility to have a role in that?” he answers. “MRIS originally assumed a role of facilitating the flow of info wherever our brokers wanted it to go,” Charron explained. “With the dust-up between ListHub and Zillow, that pipeline essentially broke. Our brokers thought it was our responsibility to fix the pipe. We did.”

SNAP A HOME WITH HOMESNAP
To accommodate MRIS members who are “spending 70 percent of their time in their car,” Charron aligned MRIS with Homesnap. “It has been heartening that we have had well over 50 percent of our agents sign up in one year,” he said. “And our members have subsequently invited over 1.2 million consumers who have downloaded the app.”  This MLS is positioned to stay ahead of consumers, who search for homes on smart phones.

REAL ESTATE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA
Five years ago, MRIS launched Real Estate Business Intelligence (RBI) and essentially launched a data platform that allows access to the most recent MLS data. “We were a data company, but we were not doing anything with the data,” he confessed.

“One of the assets I saw was a use of the data that did not impinge the Realtors’®, value but would enhance the value that they bring to the table,” Charron explained. The appeal of the RBI tool would be utilizing the data collected from the past 15 years to help agents present transaction history and statistical information to clients in a compelling and easily understood manner. To date, RBI has 8,000 paid subscribers.

ONE NATIONAL MLS FOR ALL NAR MEMBERS? THUMBS UP OR DOWN
The Automated Valuation Model sites such as Zillow, along with realtor.com have been vying for unique visits from consumers as a nationwide database, but can real estate practitioners consolidate their proprietary MLS sites into one national MLS?
The result would merge the nation’s Realtor®-represented homes for sale into one database, consolidating the 850 multiple listing services in the U.S.

“Realtor.com has had resurgence,” Charron said. “It has new mojo with News Corp. There is a relationship with NAR and the Realtor® family, but these [online real estate] portals are the Clash of the Titans. They are scrapping for the hearts and minds of the consumer.”

Any chance for a uniform MLS? Not likely, he noted. “I think you could have a national database, but every market has its own terminology, governance and local laws. Plus unique local market information will always be required.”

THE KEY FOB FLOP
The biggest misstep that MRIS made was instituting the members’ use of a key fob for two years. “We were trying to make sure that only authorized users of the system used it,” he explained. “We issued key fobs, which represented the best technology at the time. Unfortunately it impinged on the legitimate users of the system.” While MRIS’s intentions were good, he admits it was poorly executed. Recalls, resets and not surprisingly resentment occurred simultaneously.
 
“That was my biggest failure,” he said. “It was not a pleasant time.” Technology has advanced and so have we. Key fobs are long gone!”

THE TIME HAS COME FOR COMING SOON 
The “Coming Soon” piece is in part a function of the dearth of inventory,” Charron said about the ‘coming soon’ status in MATRIX. “It looked like there were more listings that were coming soon than really were. So we created a vehicle for those who wanted to play by the rules – give them an alternative.” The goal was to create a culture of accountability, and this new feature achieved that by allowing agents to enter their listing information to be viewed by their peers 21 days before becoming active. 

ACCOLADES ABOUND
Charron has been included in Inman’s 100 industry top people for nine years in a row. His name has appeared in Swanepoel’s Power 200 list of the most powerful people in the industry since inception. The only ingredient that always works in a complicated business environment with big data and advanced technologies is performance. With Charron as the leading MRIS influencer, MRIS will remain a top performer.