MLS PIN, the state’s largest multiple listing service, plans to launch a public-facing search site next year.

"We have pretty much come to a decision to do one going forward," said Kathy Condon, president and CEO of MLS PIN.

Condon said the board of the broker-owned MLS decided to move forward with the proposal at its last meeting and was now in the process of selecting vendors. The site would not be ready before the second quarter of 2014 at the earliest, she said.

The two other Massachusetts MLSs, the Cape Cod and Islands MLS and The Berkshire MLS, already have public search functions on their sites.

Public-facing websites have been a subject of controversy within the real estate industry recently. A handful of MLSs across the country, most prominently the Houston Association of Realtors, have succeeded in making their own public search site the go-to website for local consumers who are looking for a home. Many brokers are opposed to such sites, preferring that as much local search traffic as possible be driven to their own sites.

At an annual conference for MLS executives earlier this fall, Craig Cheatham, president and CEO of The Realty Alliance, warned MLS leaders that their embrace of public-facing sites was helping to drive a wedge between MLS and some of the large brokers whose agents provide many of their members. The Realty Alliance, which counts dozens of the country’s largest brokers in its membership including William Raveis, has said it is planning to create its own private listing service, a move which could allow its members to bypass posting their listings on their local MLSs.

Unlike the majority of the nations’ multiple listing services, which are managed by local Realtor associations, MLS PIN is broker-owned. Condon said that the MLS-PIN site would take into consideration brokers’ concerns about MLSs potentially competing with their own sites by making sure that the site was entirely opt-in and adhering to the "Fair Display" guidelines endorsed by The Realty Alliance itself.