An effort by real estate firms to create Manhattan's first multiple listing service and joint Web site has failed because of disagreements among the city's brokerage firms.
Manhattan is the only major real estate market in the country without a multiple listing service.
The service allows customers to shop for all the available properties in a given area through a single broker. The Web site was seen as the first step in creating such a service. The MLS Web site grew out of the desire of small and medium-size firms to have an alternative to a Web site that two large firms, Douglas Elliman and the Corcoran Group, proposed creating in July 2000, The Times said. Pam Liebman, chief executive of the Corcoran Group, blamed an unwieldy, 17-member board. I can't get 17 of my friends to agree on where to meet for dinner, you can imagine how hard it was for us to get 17 people with different opinions all going in the same direction and trying to prioritize what we wanted.