Trulia will provide special training and discounts on the listing portal’s marketing tools to 40,000 members of Lisle, Ill.-based Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED), one of the nation’s largest multiple listing services.

MRED is the first MLS to partner with Trulia in the new “Shared Success Program,” which will provide guidance to agents on how to get the most out of Trulia’s local and mobile ads platforms and suite of membership plans. The program is being marketed to MLSs throughout the country.

“Our goal (with the program) is to help agents better understand Trulia’s free and paid services to help agents and brokers succeed and more effectively use Trulia’s tools to grow their businesses,” said Trulia spokesperson Ginger Wilcox.

In addition to MRED members receiving discounts for Trulia products, they’ll also receive training on how to use both Trulia’s free and paid tools and exclusive training webcasts.

As part of the deal, MRED will also use be able to co-brand training materials including videos, handouts and emails that market Trulia’s tools to its members.

“Trulia is delivering the online and mobile tools to help agents meet the expectations of today’s consumers, and agents who adopt those tools effectively will build a better business,” said Russ Bergeron, CEO of MRED.

MRED is one of several large MLSs that provide listings to Trulia. Others include the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), Boston-area MLS Property Information Service Inc. (MLSPIN), Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Connecticut Multiple Listing Service (CTMLS).

Trulia rival Zillow also receives listings directly from some MLSs, including HAR, MLSPIN, CTMLS, and the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors.

Some are noticing that partnerships like this are an indication that the portals and industry are in the beginning stages of figuring out how to work together.

“I tweeted last week from #Clareity that there seemed to be a subtle shift coming from portal bashing toward finding ways to partner and co-exist. MRED seems to be on the leading edge of that with this announcement,” wrote Amy Geddes, chief operating officer of real estate consulting firm Clareity Consulting, in a Facebook post yesterday.

Ron Stephan, CEO of Southeast-based real estate analysis firm Metro Market Trends, agreed.

“If its considered portal bashing to be concerned that some portals have inaccurate, untimely, illegal listings and repurpose MLS and broker data … then consider me a portal basher! Trulia, for one, has come a long way toward cooperation,” Stephan wrote in a comment on Geddes’ Facebook post about MRED and Trulia’s new partnership.

Finding industry partnership for the portals has been a bumpy road. This week, two Trulia execs with longtime industry experience and mandates to build relationships between the portal and the real estate world split ways with the company.

In December, Trulia hired iHomefinder founder Alon Chaver as vice president of industry services.

Zillow has been similarly focused on building relationships in the real estate industry. Last year, it hired prominent real estate broker Jay Thompson and longtime MLS exec Bob Bemis to beef up its industry rep. In January, former NRT LLC exec Chris Crocker joined the team at Zillow.

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Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated the number of multiple listing services participating in the Zillow Partnership Platform. Zillow is not disclosing the number of participants.

Zillow will get listings directly from the 1,000-member Corpus Christi Association of Realtors, which has signed on to become the latest member of the Zillow Partnership Platform.

The Texas-based Realtor association joins the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), Connecticut Multiple Listing Service (CTMLS), and Shrewsbury, Mass.-based MLS Property Information Network Inc. (MLSPIN) as members of the Zillow Partnership Platform. Like HAR, the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors operates the local MLS.

A Zillow spokeswoman said other MLSs are participating, but declined to disclose how many.

The Zillow Partnership Platform, announced last May, provides brokers and agents who belong to participating associations and MLSs with enhanced branding and other perks in exchange for direct listing feeds.

“We are very concerned about accuracy and freshness of our listings as they are displayed on public websites,” said Josh Ellington, director of MLS and technology at the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors in a statement. “We applaud Zillow’s efforts to increase accuracy by refreshing their database as often as every 15 minutes using the direct data feed from the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors.”

“The Zillow Partnership Platform strives to eliminate the confusion associated with stale data, lagging price changes and incorrect statuses,” said Bob Bemis, Zillow vice president of partner relations.

Listings fed to the Zillow program show up on the Zillow Real Estate Network, which includes Yahoo Homes, Google Now, and soon, HGTV’s FrontDoor.com

Unlike Realtor.com — which thanks to its ties to the National Association of Realtors gets listings directly from most of the nation’s MLSs — third-party portals get listing data from a variety of sources, including MLSs, brokers, agents and listing syndicators like ListHub and Point2. 

Zillow rival Trulia launched a program in 2011, in which MLS data takes precedence over other sources when discrepancies are found. Large MLSs providing Trulia with direct feeds include the HAR, MLSPIN, CTMLS, Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED),  and Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc. (BAREIS) in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Trulia and Zillow launched programs last year that provide perks to brokerages providing direct feeds.

This week Zillow announced that Hunt Real Estate ERA is sending listings the firm represents in New York and Arizona directly to Zillow, bringing the number of firms participating in the “Zillow Pro for Brokers” program to 49.

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