Sharing Real Estate Information

30,000 agents with 79 Multiple Listing Services track property with software system produced by Fargo-based Financial Business Systems, Inc.

Imagine a computer software system that tracks 85,000 real estate property listings for sale in 28 states, Guam and Venezuela worth more than $20 billion. That's what Fargo-based software company FBS produces for more than 30,000 real estate agents belonging to 79 Multiple Listing Services located in those venues.

"FBS provides the software to the MLS's (like the Fargo-Moorhead Area Association of Realtors) to enable their members to communicate with each other about what real estate is for sale and what has been sold," said Michael Wurzer, FBS chief executive officer.

FBS, Financial Business Systems Inc., 1020 36th St. S.W., Fargo, was started by Wurzer's father, Paul Wurzer, in 1978. Michael Wurzer, who worked for the company during high school and college, joined the business as chief executive officer in 1997 after working as an attorney in Los Angeles and Minneapolis. "I was interested in it and wanted to get back to Fargo," he said. "I guess Fargo just gets in your blood and you want to come back home."

Until then, FBS was in the business of printing catalogs containing real estate listings for MLS's located across the country."It was time to retool" and offer the service online over the Internet, Wurzer said. "I was interested in taking on that challenge."

In 1999, Wurzer and his staff created and released flexmls online. Flexmls is an open-browser system that does everything from listing properties and prices to showing where they are on detailed maps. Last year, real estate agents using flexmls software reported 160,322 property sales worth $28.1 billion, Wurzer said.

The system offers a private intranet to members of each MLS, he said. "It's kind of like a private communications system for them." In 1999, 5,000 real estate agents were listed in FBS multiple-listing catalogs. Today, there are 30,380 agents listed online, representing 600 percent growth, Wurzer said, with 4,000 new agents added in the past five months.

Dave Lanpher, president of the Fargo-Moorhead Area Association of Realtors, said the flexmls Web system is much quicker. "This is an Internet-based system. No matter where you are you can go online and do business," he said. "Wherever I'm at, I have access to the information. We just really like the system." In addition to listing properties for sale, the program offers tools for creating sales presentations for buyers and sellers, Wurzer said.

Real estate agents can tell the system what type of property a client is looking for, using an automatic e-mail feature, Wurzer said.

Flexmls automatically keeps both the agent and customer up to date on new listings that come onto the market, he said. "We send the data on behalf of the MLS," he said. "We basically are the technology provider." About half of his clients continue to use MLS listing catalogs, which are printed at FBS' Fargo headquarters.

"When we started this business, it was all print," Wurzer said. "Now the focus is 75 percent software and 25 percent print." FBS once employed about 40 workers, many in its former offset print shop.Today, the company has 29 employees. Five work the company's support desk answering client questions, Wurzer said. Nine programmers design company software. Four are employed in sales.Four are needed to operate the new digital print shop. Its six virtual presses produce 2 million pages per month, said Kevin Tranby, print shop production manager.

The remaining employees represent management and support personnel.

MLS catalogs are downloaded on computer software and come off the press ready to be bound and shipped, Wurzer said."Most of our book clients are still in the more rural areas," Tranby said. For instance, the Aberdeen, S.D., MLS orders 50, 50-page books, he said.

That order took 2˝ hours to complete via the offset printing system, Tranby said. "Now we can do it in 17 minutes."

Wurzer said the prominent location of flexmls on Internet search engines has proven helpful. "We get calls from all over the place," he said.

Employees recently formed an employee stock ownership plan and purchased 100 percent of company stock from his father, Wurzer said.

"So now it is a 100 percent employee-owned company."