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As the National Association of Realtors weighs the fate of its contentious Clear Cooperation Policy, Coldwell Banker Realty President and CEO Kamini Lane is taking the conversation to the public with a passionate Newsweek op-ed defending the policy.
Kamini Lane | Coldwell Banker Realty
“Imagine this: After years or even decades of saving, you’re finally beginning your long-awaited search for a new home. You’ve connected with an agent to guide you to your dream home, and you hop into bed at the end of a long day as you finally get a chance to review the new listings in your favorite neighborhood,” she said. “But there’s a problem — one that you wouldn’t have encountered a year earlier. You and your agent can’t see all of the new homes for sale … you only have access to a portion of the market.”
“It sounds like an inconvenience, but it’s actually much worse than that,” she added. “The reality is that there are companies that are actively hiding new homes for sale from buyers like you, for the sole reason that you’re not working with one of their real estate agents. And, they have no intention of making the property available to you unless you ditch your agent to come work with them.”
Lane went on to lambast industry members who want to do away with the policy, which requires listing brokers to list properties in Realtor-affiliated multiple listing services within one business day of publicly marketing them. Those members, she said, are being disingenuous when they say repealing CCP is only about protecting homesellers’ privacy and their choice to market to a smaller group of homebuyers.
“They’ll self-servingly try to convince sellers that exposure to fewer people will actually help them secure the right value for their home (they’re hoping those clients haven’t heard about the concept of supply and demand),” she said. “The reasoning behind all of this is simple — to grow their business regardless of how it may harm buyers and sellers.”
The scenarios where homesellers truly need to pursue an off-market listing approach are far and few between, she said. High-profile sellers might value privacy over the maximum profit, and homesellers with truly unique properties might find it difficult to sell on the open market where there’ll be no comparable homes. CCP should be revised to help agents better meet those rare clients’ needs, instead of ditching the policy altogether.
“Many in real estate, including Coldwell Banker Realty and our parent company Anywhere, are advocating for the rule to be revised, rather than repealed, to account for these specific circumstances,” she said. “This would allow some flexibility in marketing strategy, while maintaining the guardrails that have protected consumers for decades.”
The Coldwell Banker Realty CEO said there “could not be a worse time to restrict access to new homes” as the market struggles to close a 3.8 million inventory gap. Repealing CCP, she said, would only exacerbate inventory and affordability issues for homebuyers amid rising mortgage rates and stubborn inflation.
“Millions of Americans every year put their faith in a real estate agent to help guide them through this process, with the hope that it will result in one of the most significant transactions of their lives,” Lane wrote. “In a market that is facing nearly unprecedented challenges, it’s paramount that policymakers and the real estate industry itself put these consumers first. Instead of creating more barriers, we should be fighting to make homeownership more accessible, more transparent, and more competitive for all.”
Lane’s op-ed comes as NAR announced it will decide CCP’s fate “within weeks.”
“The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has been engaged in a thorough and deliberate process to evaluate the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), seeking input from a broad range of industry stakeholders, including Realtors, brokerage leaders, MLS executives, association executives, and multicultural partner organizations,” a NAR spokesperson exclusively told Inman on March 12. “Over the last several months, NAR has followed a rigorous process in assessing this input, including seeking the expertise of the MLS Technology and Emerging Issues Advisory Board and considering the implications of a range of potential paths forward.”
“NAR remains committed to transparency and engagement with members as we navigate this process to ensure that any decision reflects the best and balanced interests of the industry, including the diverse perspectives of our members and the consumers they serve,” the spokesperson added. “The process is now nearing its completion, and NAR expects to provide an update on the decision in the coming weeks.”
Michael Ketchmark of Ketchmark & McCreight, the attorney behind the Sitzer | Burnett and ongoing Gibson buyer-broker commission cases, said he’s watching NAR’s decision on CCP, which he said stifles the free market. Ketchmark denied rumors he’d sue NAR over CCP, noting the Association has “upheld their end of the bargain.” However, he said he’d pursue depositions against brokers who vote to keep CCP with “anti-competitive goals in mind.”
“I have more faith in the free market than the people who are making arguments like that,” Ketchmark told Inman. “Change is here. Change is upon us. It’s time that people accept that and embrace that.”
As the industry anxiously awaits NAR’s decision, opponents and proponents of CCP are pulling out their bullhorns for a final battle cry.
Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman and Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman both defended CCP this week, with Liebman saying listings should be “shared amongst everybody” at Inman on Tour Nashville and Freedman penning an Inman op-ed arguing that the industry should “step up and do what’s right for buyers, sellers and agents alike.”
Meanwhile, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin used his time at Inman on Tour Nashville to say CCP undergirds an “MLS monopoly” on listing data. He also reiterated past arguments that CCP unfairly attaches “negative insights” such as days on market and price drops to listings, which hurts homsellers’ ability to get the maximum value for their homes.
“You get the listing. You pay for the photos. You take the photos. And then the MLS, in the agreement that every brokerage firm has to sign, they legally own your content afterward,” he said. “We have no choice. And the definition of monopoly is you have no choice.”
