Breaking Down Language Barriers Between U.S. and France

NAR reports that, beginning in mid-September, as many as 300,000 U.S. REALTOR® listings in Florida, California, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. will be translated into French for display at the website of the Federation Nationale de l'Immobilier (FNAIM), NAR's association partner in France.

Similarly, REALTORS® affiliated with participating local REALTOR® Association MLSs will be able to display their choice of more than 500,000 FNAIM members' listings from throughout France, translated into English, at their website. This global property "exchange" is the result of the expansion of a service that has been pilot tested over the past two years by two REALTOR® Associations in Florida (Miami and the Beaches and Sarasota) and the Paris chapter of FNAIM. Based on the success of the pilot program offered by Immobel, a provider of international real estate technology and cross language marketing services, FNAIM is expanding the Immobel Global Listing Exchange service to include all of its members listings in France and NAR is exploring options to expand the service in the U.S.

The Immobel platform allows brokers to individually determine which properties they wish to make available for display and also which to display from their foreign counterparts. The ICREA Transnational Referral Service is the basis for cooperation between agents to assist clients and earn client referral fees.