More information about the marketing history of a home listed through the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which includes the vast majority of homes for sale in Pierce County, is scheduled to start coming your way in July. The broker-owned listing service has decided to allow real estate brokerages to display on their Web sites the number of days a home has been on the market.

Such transparency pulls back the curtain on data previously available only to real estate agents, brokers and their customers. It also marks a change in philosophy from guarding data only accessed by hiring an agent or broker to trying to leverage it as a means to build stronger relationship with consumers.

Tom Hurdelbrink, CEO of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, said the listing service has been talking for a long time about how to adapt to the comfort level today’s real estate consumers have with the Internet.

While Hurdelbrink said some other listing services around the country also give consumers access to the length of time on the market, the Northwest MLS will be among a minority providing the statistics.

“It’s another way to offer content to the consumer that may entice or compel the shopper to call the real estate broker to talk about their serious interest as a buyer or seller,” he said.

Much like retailers, Hurdelbrink said he thinks real estate companies will evolve toward a strong presence on both the Internet and at the street level.

“We’re figuring out how that can work in parity,” he said. “That is hard, particularly for people like me who are over 50 who didn’t grow up surfing on the web. I thought eight-track tapes were radical. Ask anyone in their 20s what an eight-track tape is today.”

Hurdelbrink says he’s aware that releasing the information could bring criticism from home builders and sellers, but he thinks the statistics made available in July will ultimately be considered as standard as what’s available to consumers today, such as price, location and the MLS listing number.

The official rule change occurs July 3, but Hurdelbrink said it will likely be mid-July before you’ll see it pop up at your favorite real estate Web site as the MLS continues to work out some technical kinks. Redfin already posts days-on-market stats on its Web site. Hurdelbrink said the listing service decided against penalizing Redfin for using the statistics since the rule change was in the works.

One final note: The number of days on market for what’s sold and listed won’t be available in the monthly MLS statistical release in the near future, so I won’t be able to report the numbers countywide when I report the median home price, sales activity, etc. Hurdelbrink said providing those numbers requires a different setup than getting them to brokerages.