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Each week on The Download, Inman’s Christy Murdock takes a deeper look at the top-read stories of the week to give you what you’ll need to meet Monday head-on. This week: Leaders across the real estate landscape are sharing their perspectives on the Clear Cooperation Policy — and what its possible end would mean for consumers and the housing market.
Clear Cooperation. Clear Collaboration. Private listing networks. Wherever you land on the debate around pocket listings and the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), there’s an industry leader who’s probably on your team.
As the National Association of Realtors telegraphs its intention to revisit the rules around CCP in the days or weeks ahead, some of the biggest names in real estate are weighing in with their opinions, arguments and intentions. In addition, one of the industry’s most polarizing figures waded in this week, asserting that he didn’t buy into the arguments posited by pro-CCP adherents.
“I have more faith in the free market than the people who are making arguments like that,” Michael Ketchmark of Ketchmark & McCreight said.
Fate of Clear Cooperation at hand as Ketchmark issues new warning by Andrea V. Brambila
As NAR leaders prepare to decide the fate of the Clear Cooperation policy, they’re feeling the heat of yet another potential legal entanglement.
Lead plaintiffs’ counsel in the ongoing Gibson lawsuit, Ketchmark told Inman in a phone interview that his firm would decide its next move depending on the outcome of NAR’s decision.
“It’s my expectation that after this meeting, when this comes to a NAR vote overall, that they’ll do the right thing and remove that policy and let the free market continue to work,” Ketchmark said.
“If they refuse to do so, and the committee votes in favor of this policy, and it goes on and the changes aren’t made, we’ll take the depositions of the people involved and figure out exactly why they did that and what was the motivation behind it, and then make a decision at that point on how to proceed.”
Ketchmark’s warning comes amid increasing discussion around Clear Cooperation and its eventual fate. Here are the latest op-eds from industry heavyweights:
Clear Cooperation favors free markets: Bess
Dismantling CCP entirely will negatively impact the industry, Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman writes. The industry needs to “step up and do what’s right for buyers, sellers and agents alike.”
Why client disclosures, not MLS mandates, serve homeowners
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin cites research on pre-marketing outcomes to argue for an end to Clear Cooperation Policy mandates.
Kamini Lane: It couldn’t ‘be a worse time’ to repeal Clear Cooperation
Coldwell Banker Realty CEO Kamini Lane wrote a Newsweek op-ed about protecting Clear Cooperation, saying repeal would allow brokers to “actively hide” listings amid a long-lasting housing shortage.
Brokerages that oppose CCP don’t want transparency:
We need a fully transparent system that favors the consumer, not the broker, team leader Carl Medford writes, so that buyers and sellers can feel confident when transacting real estate.
Christy Murdock is a writer, coach and consultant and the owner of Writing Real Estate. Connect with Writing Real Estate on Instagram and subscribe to the weekly roundup, The Ketchup.
