Robert Reffkin may be grabbing headlines with his fight over office exclusives, but Compass International Holdings is hardly the only brokerage pushing MLSs to change.
At the Council of MLS’s Open House conference Wednesday, brokerage leaders laid out a broader list of frustrations — from slow response times and inconsistent data standards to territorial boundaries and cumbersome technology. Their message was equally blunt: If MLSs don’t become better partners to brokers, some brokerages may simply find ways to work around them.
On a panel moderated by CMLS CEO Jessica Edgerton, Gretchen Rosenberg of HomeServices of America, Dennis Cestra of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, Paul Boomsma of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Al Becker of Jack Conway and Holly Mabery of eXp Realty discussed where the MLS model is creating friction — and what needs to change before that friction becomes something more serious.
Who’s got the pain
For Rosenberg and Boomsma, the largest pain points expressed by their brokers and agents is the lack of responsiveness from their MLSs.
“Whenever they are reaching out to their MLS provider, asking for help with a project or answers to questions about interpreting rules, they are not getting answers quickly,” Rosenberg said.
Boomsma added that in today’s remote and digital working environment, when an agent has an issue, the request goes into a digital queue that can at times be incredibly inefficient.
For Becker, however, as he operates in a broker-owned MLS in Massachusetts, MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN), he said responsiveness is a non-issue.
“MLS responsiveness is immediate for us, so we are fortunate in that way, but right now, I think there is an opportunity to make sure that you have organizations, bylaws and governance structures that create opportunities or at least meet the opportunities that brokers need while also making sure that it is a level playing field for all companies that maybe don’t have new opportunities or have different business models,” he said.
But the brokers acknowledged that this isn’t an easy ask.
“The MLS has become this backstop for rules that people wanted to have enforced but that nobody else wanted to enforce. It is unfair to put that on the MLSs and to make them into this rule-making body,” Cestra, who is also the newly elected president of West Penn MLS, said. “At the end of the day the MLSs are data aggregators and partners with the brokers more than anything, and I think going forward that has to be something that we, as a group, all key in on.”
In order to be a better partner to brokers, Mabery said MLSs need to become less territorial.
“What I am hearing from our agents is absolute frustration because of the fiefdoms and artificial boundaries we have built with the MLSs and Realtor associations,” she said.
This issue is compounded, according to Mabery, by consumers that don’t understand that a broker may not be able to show them a property because they do not operate in a neighboring MLS.
“Now what we have is agents who have to join multiple MLSs and associations just to have access, so these artificial fiefdoms have to go away,” Mabery said.
Pain relief
All of the brokers on the panel stressed that they want the MLS to be their partners. For Cestra this means making sure MLS rules allow for innovation. “It is really important that MLSs create rules that allow innovation, foster creativity and allow for evolution in the marketplace,” Cestra said.
Mabery shared a similar view, but with a greater focus on technology than on rules, telling the MLSs that they don’t need all of the SaaS contracts.
“We don’t need these,” Mabery said. “When we look at AI , there is so much that we are able to build at a very elementary level, so it is looking at how your members and subscribers can plug directly into the ecosystem and have that robust back end of the data, instead of going through layers and layers of stuff with different logins just to utilize the system.”
As for brokers like eXp that operate across multiple MLSs, the brokerage executives also stressed the importance of data standardization. According to Rosenberg, HomeServices of America is a member of over 250 MLSs nationwide. With such a widespread operation, she and her agents frequently run up against MLSs that are not Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) certified.
“That is a tax on us brokers, both big and small that operate across multiple MLSs, so can you please look into that?” she asked.
Doomsday
If resolutions to these pain points are not reached and the MLS does not evolve, according to Mabery the MLS “won’t exist.” In her home state of Arizona, she said she is currently watching her local association, which voted to join the regional MLS, try to walk this back.
“I look at that and we are at another extinction event,” Mabery said. “These fiefdoms have to stop because if they don’t and if you don’t evolve with technology and work with the brokers, we will work around you because the consumers and our agents are demanding it.”
According to Mabery, the more friction MLSs put on brokerages, the more likely they will be to try to find solutions around the MLS, as this is what their brokers will demand.
Becker agrees with Mabery’s assertion that MLSs need to talk to brokers to find out what they need and want, he doesn’t believe the situation is as dire. In Boomsma’s view these conversations between the MLS and brokerages are key.
“I think we are at a point where we have to get real about what we want from the MLS. I think we have been managing to the exceptions and not getting into how we work together,” Boomsma said.
Like Mabery, he feels that if this doesn’t happen brokers will find a way around the MLS as AI is making it easier to create databases and tools.
For Cestra, this again means allowing “inventory creators” to be creative.
“I think working with those people that are in the business, providing inventory to your MLS is really imperative and then being courageous to move forward and to allow these brokers to be creators,” he said.
If not, Rosenberg added that people will “chart their own course.”
“I think everyone here is looking for solutions to help our agents, brokers, and consumers, the clients, the buyers and the sellers, and we want solutions to help them both buyers and sellers,” she said.
What this looks like moving forward, according to the brokers, is the MLS being a partner to brokers.
“I think that is the thing you need to hear is we want you to be our partner and we don’t want you to act as if you are putting up gates against us because we are the one supplying you with that data and information, so let’s work together,” Rosenberg said.
