The future of the MLS may be murky, but brokers still want the data

As a panel of real estate leaders gathered to discuss the future of the MLS at the National Association of Realtors‘ NXT conference in Boston, Errol Samuelson, Zillow‘s chief industry development officer, found himself and his company in a bit different standing than usual with the audience of several hundred agents and brokers.

“The MLS is so incredibly pro-consumer. It lets buyers see all of their options,“ Samuelson said. “If you think about sellers, it enables them to see what their competition is, and it lets sellers come up with a strategy in terms of how they should work with their agent to sell their home.

“The MLS is an unbiased, open marketplace where there is equal access to information. So, it is a fair, level playing field because everybody has the same opportunity to see the same data,” he added to widespread applause among the audience.

Zillow has long been disliked, or merely tolerated, by many real estate professionals. But the company’s strong stance on data transparency and in providing equal access to listing information for both agents and consumers appears to have changed that.

While the panelists did not explicitly discuss NAR’s increasingly controversial Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), the rule, which requires listing brokers to enter listings into the MLS within 24 hours of marketing the property, was at the center of the panel’s discussion.

Where to draw the line?

The support shown toward comments made by Samuelson and California Regional MLS (CRMLS) CEO Art Carter during the panel discussion stood in stark contrast to the silence following remarks made by Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin.

During Compass’ third-quarter 2024 earnings call with investors, Reffkin claimed that agents across the country are “infuriated” with CCP and their inability to give sellers a choice in listing their property on the MLS. But the cool response Reffkin received during the panel would suggest fewer agents than his brokerage believes are actually supportive of changing the policy.

As he has previously stated, Reffkin highlighted data such as days on market and price drop history, which is typically displayed alongside all listings in the MLS, as being problematic and harmful to home sellers.

“I think when we talk about consumers, we often talk a lot about buyers and not enough about sellers. I think in the future it will be more balanced,” Reffkin said. “I believe days on market is the killer of value. I believe price drop history is the killer of value. No homeowner wants it on their listing, but 40% of homes right now have a price drop history, which makes them look like damaged goods.

“I think if buyers deserve to know days on market, then sellers should deserve to know how long a buyer has been looking and how many of their offers have been rejected.”

While the other panelists agreed that several price declines or a high number of days on the market is not a flattering look for a property, they are concerned about where the line would be drawn if they began to withhold information about the listing from buyers.

“It is hard from an MLS standpoint because days on market is a fact of marketing the property, and if you hide that, then at what level do you hide that information from a buyer? I have difficulty in that concept that because it disadvantages the seller. I don’t think you should hide that piece of information,” Carter said.

In a session later in the day about educating sellers, Michael Soon Lee, the president of Seminars Unlimited, stressed to attendees that the more information their sellers are willing to disclose about a property — even if it is something unflattering — the better.

“Every single thing that the seller discloses about the property takes the liability off their shoulders and puts it on the shoulders of the buyer,” Lee said. “As an agent, your job is to make sure your seller discloses everything that they need to disclose, which is anything that could be a problem in the future.”

This suggests that despite Reffkin’s assertions, many in the industry still believe it is important for buyers to have access to as much information about a listing as possible.

Panelist Kymber Lovett-Menkiti, the president of Washington, D.C.-based Keller Williams Capital Properties, acknowledged that while withholding certain listings from MLSs or creating a more fragmented view of the market may fuel competition among brokerages, it may not be the best thing for consumers.

“If you are only seeing a partial view of what is available, we as an industry will find a solution for that and be competitive. But ultimately, if it is competitive at the brokerage level but a disservice to the consumer, is that really in our best interest?” Lovett-Menkiti said.

When it comes to competition between brokerages and agents, Samuelson believes the competition should focus on individual skills.

“I think the best agents win because of their expertise and their experience and their skills, not because of an information asymmetry,” Samuelson said. “I think that the information should be equally available and then the agents should compete on their skills.”

Starting from scratch?

During the panel, moderator Brian Donnellan, the president and CEO of Bright MLS, asked panelists what they believe would happen if the MLS went away.

“We have 100 years of evolution in the MLS, and I think that if the legs were cut out from underneath the MLS and we had to start over, we would end up in a very frustrating environment because it took 100 years to get from the fractured environment we started with to the transparent marketplace we have now,” Carter said.

But with offers of buyer broker compensation no longer being allowed on the MLS — and some, like Reffkin, advocating for the removal of the CCP — a world without the MLS may be closer to reality than some in the industry would like to admit. Due to this, many industry professionals believe cooperation among brokerages is even more important.

“The MLS is the transparent marketplace. It is the one place I can go to find all of the listing content, all of the available properties in a certain area for my client, and for a lot of people, that is more important than anything else,” Carter said. “If you dig into it a little bit, by having that data in there, agents and consumers can rely on the fact that the property is really for sale and that it really has four bedrooms and three bathrooms.”

Lovett-Menkiti also said it is important for consumers to have a platform like the MLS, where the information is presented both accurately and fairly.

“They need a platform where they know that I didn’t pay extra to bump one listing to the top over others, but that there is a leveling of information out there for how buyers work and search,” she said.

Not only did panelists wish to see their MLSs continue to exist and provide consumers with access to data, they also want to see the platforms improve to better serve brokers and agents.

“If you feel like your MLS is not providing you with the services and products you need, you can advocate through your state or local association for that because, in some instances, our consumers have a better product in a listing portal than we do in the MLS,” Lovett-Menkiti said.  

Especially in areas with several overlapping MLSs, Samuelson said that if data sharing agreements exist and MLSs can home in on solutions to agent pain points, they will be able to compete for agent business.

“If those data shares happen, brokers would have a choice in the MLS they join,” he said. “You wouldn’t be choosing an MLS simply because they have some sort of exclusive access to certain listings. You’d have MLSs competing based on the cost and the services that are provided and the level of customer service.”

While the MLS of the future may look a bit different — and may offer brokers and agents more services — it appears that the majority of Realtors present at NAR NXT would like to preserve the core function of the MLS by providing all consumers with equal access to accurate and transparent data.