It's back to square one for the ambitious plans by competing realtors in the Big Apple to launch an Internet-based real estate multiple listings service.

atNewYork has learned that efforts by the Manhattan Joint Industry Task Force to create a database at NYMLS.com have been shelved because of wrangling among competing real estate agents.

As previously reported the task force was set up last August to create the NYMLS.com database to allow competing brokers to share Manhattan real estate listing information on the Internet.

The creation of the MLS site has been the subject of bitter controversy from the very beginning when rival brokers unveiled separate plans to create their own listing service online.

On one side, says the source, is one group of brokers led by the Corcoran Group and Douglas Elliman, two of the bigger Manhattan real estate firms. The other group is led by Ashford Warburg and includes Sotheby's International Realty, Brown Harris Stevens and William B. May Real Estate.

When some of the smaller realtors got wind of those plans, they felt they were being shut out of the lucrative market and announced plans for the NYMLS.com site.

Eventually, all sides agreed to the formation of the task force and the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) called for consensus among the brokers. However, an industry source said the plans have fallen apart.

"There was just too much at stake for all sides and they could never agree on anything so it's back to square one. We don't know what happens next," a source with knowledge of the negotiations said this morning.

Details of the disagreements within the task force were not immediately clear but a source said the existing NYMLS.com Web site will be shut down immediately. Officials from the task force and the REBNY could not be reached for comment.

New York City is on the biggest market without a multiple listing service to allow a fair way to share information among competing brokers. A company retained to sell a condo or apartment can is not required the share the information under the existing system.

The NYMLS.com database would have mandated brokerage firms to post new listing for sale on the Internet within 72 hours of being hired to conduct the sale.