MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

As we celebrate 25 years of service to the real estate community in the northwest, it is interesting to look at some of the high-level numbers that describe the business and economics of the multiple listing service.

Let’s start with the number of subscribers. In March 1991, before service had even begun, there were over 3,400 Portland-area REALTORS® committed to participating in the new multiple listing service. This March, we had 12,472 subscribers from all over Oregon and southern Washington. The March with the most subscribers was 2007 with 14,178 active REALTORS®.

The chart below shows the rise and fall of subscriber numbers (as of March of each year) plotted against total numbers of closed residential sales for the year across the entire MLS. Sales peaked in 2005 with a total of 57,745, two years prior to the peak in subscriber numbers. The number of sales has been steadily rising since the recession low of 31,028 in 2008. The 55,979 sales in 2015 were the second highest number recorded in a year at RMLS™.

Due to a much higher overall average sales price, the total dollar volume of residential sales posted in RMLS™, 2015 achieved a new high water mark of $17,567,003,000 despite fewer total sales than 2005. The average sales price across all RMLS™ sales in 2005 was $268,300 compared to $313,800 in 2015.

If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

UPDATE: May 5, 2016

By subscriber request, here are the same graphs broken down by state: