My father is a real estate appraiser. He has his real estate license and has access to MLS. Are there any legal issues with me using his login to access comparable.
It is probably not illegal, but there are likely some copyright issues with using the data that they are trying to sell for free. I am a huge proponent of buying the tools you need for your profession. I see a real estate investor that does not have access to MLS and comps just like a golfer without a putter. Just like the only club that is used on every hole (the putter), the only tool you use on every house is comps. Here in Houston access to the MLS is free but the tools are not. I pay $1000/year for access to sold data. This tells me what each house in Houston sold for and when. This allows me to determine what a house is worth after it is fixed up. Every house is worth what each house in the same neighborhood just like it sold for in the last 6 months. It is worth no more than that no matter how pretty I make it. That is why access to that tool is the most important tool you can have. If you use your dad’s access, or a real estate agent that you can control, or your own tool it doesn’t matter. But doing real estate without that information (reliably) is gambling.
As far is legal access using your dad’s account, if caught you are probably going to make him lose his access and not go to jail or anything. I am not a real estate agent but agents regularly give me the lock box codes to houses and I go in to determine if I am going to buy them or not. I am at that point actually trespassing but no cop worth his donuts will put me in jail for doing it.
Bluemoon06 is right about your father possibly losing his access to MLS if he gets caught letting you access on his password. Check the MLS rules to make sure. It’s like a lot of things in life you probably will get away with it but its still wrong.
donrock
Just make sure MLS don’t know about your logins.
Also it might be good idea for you and your father not to login at same time. MLS might keep a count of concurrent logins.