IDX or VOW? Your website already answers this.
Most brokerage sites are IDX sites: a public window onto the MLS, open to anyone, showing a deliberately limited set of fields. A VOW is a different thing wearing a similar coat — a site through which you are actually providing brokerage services, which is why it may show more and why it asks more of you.
The distinction matters most at the moment someone suggests putting listings behind a signup form.
Where the line sits
Both run on MLS data and both are governed by your MLS's rules. They differ on who gets in, what they see, and what you are on the hook for afterwards.
| IDX | VOW | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can see it | Anyone. No account, no login, no relationship. | Only registrants with whom you have established a lawful broker-consumer relationship first. |
| What the consumer does | Nothing. They browse. | Supplies their name and a valid email, agrees to your terms of use, and gets a username and password. |
| Data you may show | Only the fields the MLS designates. Confidential fields are off limits. | A wider set, defined by the same MLS. This is the reason a VOW exists. |
| What you owe | Attribution, disclaimers, refresh cadence, an audit trail. | All of that, plus registrant records, password expiry, and broker supervision of the relationship. |
| Who is responsible | The participant, for the display. | The designated broker, personally, for services rendered through the site. |
“Forced registration” is sold as an IDX feature
Every IDX vendor markets it: make visitors register to keep searching, and capture the lead. As a lead-capture tactic on data you were already allowed to show publicly, that is an IDX site with a signup form, and it is fine.
It stops being fine at the point registration starts unlocking data your IDX licence doesn't cover. Gating access behind an account and then showing more because someone has an account is the shape of a VOW, and a VOW is a separate data licence with separate obligations — not a toggle in a settings page.
The question to ask any vendor: does registration change what the visitor can see? If yes, ask which licence that runs under.
What a VOW asks of you
These are not our policies. They come from the MLS rulebooks, and they are the price of the extra data.
A real relationship, first
The rules require the participant to establish a lawful broker-consumer relationship before the consumer sees VOW data. A checkbox on a signup form is not that relationship; it is the paperwork around it.
Credentials you have to manage
Each registrant needs a username and password, and passwords must expire on a date certain. One email address maps to one account.
Records that outlive the account
Coeur d'Alene requires you to keep each registrant's name, email, username and current password for at least 180 days after that password expires — and to hand those records over if the MLS suspects a violation.
Supervision that names a person
A VOW operated by an agent runs under the participant's oversight and accountability. That is a named human with a licence, not a platform setting.
And the rules differ by MLS
Two Idaho MLSs, two rulebooks, one platform serving both. This is why display rules in HomeStar are attached to the feed rather than set once for the whole site.
Intermountain MLS
Boise and southwest Idaho
Display of expired and withdrawn listings and sold price is prohibited.
Coeur d'Alene Regional REALTORS®
North Idaho
Expired and withdrawn are prohibited. Sold price is confidential, and no participant may advertise a sales price — even though the IDX data plan delivers three years of sold history in the feed.
A feed carrying data is not permission to show it
Coeur d'Alene's IDX plan delivers three years of sold history. Their rules still make sold price confidential. Those are two different questions, and conflating them is one of the easier ways to end up out of compliance without noticing. HomeStar keeps them separate: what we sync, and what we display, are configured per feed and default to the narrower answer.
Where HomeStar stands
- We build IDX sites. Registration captures leads; it does not unlock data.
- Display rules live on each MLS feed, so a brokerage carrying two feeds gets each one's rules applied correctly rather than the looser of the two.
- Recurring MLS paperwork — the quarterly roster reports and the like — is tracked with the filing history, not left on someone's calendar.
- If a VOW is genuinely the right answer for your brokerage, that is a separate licence and a conversation with your designated broker. We will tell you so rather than quietly ship it.
This page describes rules published by the MLSs named on it and is not legal advice. Your MLS's current rulebook governs, and it changes. When in doubt, ask them — they would rather answer a question than issue a fine.
Bring us your MLS's rulebook
Tell us which MLS you belong to and we will show you exactly how its display rules land on your site — before you sign anything.