Lost in the real estate alphabet soup of MLSs, IDX, VOWs and FSBOs lies a simple fact most newspapers ignore: Even more so than the local board of real estate agents, newspapers can create and promote the most comprehensive database of homes for sale in their markets.

That’s almost worth repeating — but since this is a print column, I’d recommend you go back and read that sentence one more time.

Let me explain, and then I’ll spend a few moments getting into the arcane changes under way at the National Association of Realtors involving that alphabet soup, and how newspapers will be affected.

Home sales fall into three distinct categories — builder/developer sales of new homes; resale homes through real estate agents, and homes offered “for sale by owner” — or FSBOs (pronounced “fizz-bo”). The percentage of FSBO homes varies from year to year; according to one recent survey 13 percent of homes for sale were marketed by their owners.

Targeting FSBOs

FSBOs are a significant segment, and one of the primary reasons why smart newspapers will have the best database of homes for sale in local markets: They can combine home listings from real estate agents and brokers; builder inventories, and FSBOs.

FSBOs are important in the real estate environment. If the houses are priced right, they are offered less expensively than comparable homes sold through an agent. Thus, FSBOs add more “bargain” homes to a newspaper’s database. Furthermore, any homes-for-sale database for sale that misses 13 percent of the available homes is clearly deficient from a home-seeker’s perspective.

Yet only a local newspaper is likely to create a database of FSBOs that’s combined with builder homes and listings compiled by real estate agents.

Real estate agents and their multiple listing services won’t; their goal is to sell homes that carry commissions — and who could blame them?

Builders won’t; they just want to sell the houses they’ve just built, or are about to build.

So by developing a very aggressive, well-priced campaign to capture advertising of FSBOs, a newspaper can ensure it has the most comprehensive database of houses for sale in its market.

How can a paper do that?

• Offer an aggressively priced, long-term package for FSBO sellers. A package offered by the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel is an excellent example: Its private-party home sale package costs $95 for four lines for 12 days. Those 12 days are Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays spread over four weeks. For an extra $10 the ad goes online for the entire four-week period, thus bulking up the number of FSBOs in the OrlandoSentinel.com real estate section.

• Add extra-value features: In the Sentinel’s case, “virtual tours” of homes for sale are an additional $199 with the purchase of an ad.

• Make sure all FSBOs are included in the newspaper’s online homes-for-sale database — perhaps even for free — as long as they are on the market.

• Provide the FSBOs as leads to real estate agents: Smart agents know that many of the homes originally offered for sale by owner are eventually listed with a real estate agent, so they track FSBOs and market to them as potential listing prospects. By obtaining permission to provide FSBO sellers’ names to real estate agents, newspapers can create an added-value package for their regular commercial advertisers.

How can a newspaper track down homes for sale by owner and market to the owners? It’s remarkably simple. Almost all FSBO homes have a “for sale” sign out front with a contact phone number. By giving carriers an incentive to provide FSBO leads to the classified department, and an easy way for them to turn in those leads (perhaps online?), your newspaper can create an effective outbound telemarketing campaign to capture those FSBOs.

That presupposes, of course, that your paper is aggressive about real estate sales, and staffs appropriately.

Now, let me briefly explain that alphabet soup. Multiple listing services are dealing with a new set of advertising rules about Internet data exchange, or IDX, which is sometimes referred to as broker reciprocity. These rules make it much easier for newspapers to obtain access to all MLS listings in their markets.

VOWs, or virtual office Web site brokers, are real estate agents who generally operate either exclusively or predominantly online. VOWs are the subject of great controversy among traditional agents, who fear the collapse of the system under which they control access to the primary homes-for-sale database in the market through the MLS. The NAR is debating new rules to restrict VOWs’ access to home-sale information.

The best way for your paper to navigate that alphabet soup is to make sure you offer access to the MLS data in your market — and then build upon it with an extensive list of FSBOs.

If you have the most complete homes-for-sale marketplace in your region, you’ll remain the preferred advertising and content provider for people who are looking for homes.

Peter M. Zollman is founding principal of Classified Intelligence L.L.C. and the Advanced Interactive Media Group L.L.C., a consulting group that works with newspapers and other media companies to develop profitable interactive services. He can be reached at 407.788.2780 or via e-mail at pzollman@aimgroup.com.