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The largest multiple listing service in the country is refusing to adopt the National Association of Realtors’ new policy allowing brokers to delay distributing listings on certain public listing sites.
The California Regional MLS (CRMLS), which has some 108,000 subscribers, has posted a statement to its website announcing it will not be adopting the policy and will instead use currently-existing options “to accommodate the aims of NAR’s request.”
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“The CRMLS Board of Directors has voted to NOT make any listing status changes nor offer any limitations to IDX/Syndication in response to the new NAR policy,” the statement reads.
“The existing CRMLS data distribution system already provides almost all the same choices to sellers as the new NAR policy,” the statement continues.
At the end of March, NAR announced it would not be ending its Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), which requires listing brokers to submit listings to Realtor-affiliated MLSs within one business day of publicly marketing them.
However, the 1.5-million-member trade group said it would add a new mandatory policy: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers (MLOS), which continues to require listing submission in MLSs but offers a Delayed Marketing Exempt Listings category that allows listing brokers to keep listings off of MLS subscribers’ Internet Data Exchange (IDX) sites and third-party listing portals such as Realtor.com.
Listing brokers would not be able to keep such listings off of MLS subscribers’ Virtual Office Websites (VOWs), such as those operated by Zillow and Redfin.
Asked for comment on CRMLS’s decision and whether the MLS would face any sort of discipline, a NAR spokesperson told Inman, “NAR’s new Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy is designed to give consumers greater choice and flexibility in marketing their homes for sale, while preserving local MLS discretion and optionality.
“The policy, which was developed based on extensive feedback from the MLS community and other stakeholders, gives each MLS unfettered discretion to implement Delayed Marketing Exempt Listings in a way that is most suitable to their local marketplace. MLSs are required to adopt the other aspects of the policy such as seller disclosure requirements regarding exempt listings.”
“NAR values the feedback of MLS leaders and continues to discuss the new option with them ahead of the September 30 implementation deadline,” the spokesperson added.
According to CRMLS, “there is no need” to implement the new policy, which “does not provide any additional seller choices or options, is not clear nor easy to understand or explain, and we don’t need to complicate things.”
A new listing status “would be a disservice” to CRMLS’s users because it may lead to “[i]ncreased compliance confusion,” “[r]edundant or overlapping statuses,” “[a]dditional hurdles to day-to-day business operations,” and “[l]ack of clear communication to clients about where their listings will appear online.”
CRMLS contends that NAR came up with the new MLOS policy “under increasing pressure from powerful, national brokerages to drop the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP)” so that those brokerages could publicly market listings “while keeping their listings out of public circulation, essentially creating private listing networks.” Compass, the nation’s largest brokerage, has been an especially vocal critic of the CCP.
“In an effort to maintain CCP as-is and to placate those complaining brokerages, NAR created this Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy,” CRMLS said.
According to CRMLS, it can meet the policy’s goals without adding any new statuses.
“We will instead rely upon the Active status, which already accommodates the spirit of the new policy,” CRMLS said.
“CRMLS is exploring additional features that may be used alongside the Active status to support the NAR policy.”
The MLS contends that its “Active” status already meets five out of six requirements for “delayed marketing exempt listings”: that they be placed in the MLS for cooperation with other brokers, be available for all MLS users to search and send to their customers, be available for showings, be open for submitting offers, and placed in the CRMLS VOW data feed.
“This status includes all necessary elements and allows brokers to opt out of IDX and syndication at the office level,” CRMLS said.
“Sellers concerned about privacy can instruct their broker to opt their listing out of all internet distribution.”
However, CRMLS’s “Active” status does not meet the sixth requirement: that listings not appear in an MLS’s IDX or syndication data feed.
“The only missing feature is listing-specific opt-outs for IDX or syndication,” CRMLS said.
Inman reached out to CRMLS to ask whether this means that brokerage offices can opt all of their listings out of IDX and syndication, but can’t opt out specific listings. We will update this story if and when a response is received.
The MLS pointed out that brokers could choose to turn their website from an IDX to a VOW site in order to display all the listings and that large brokerages have already done so.
“If this option is implemented, any website that displays listings could simply switch to a VOW (Virtual Office Website) feed, effectively bypassing the ‘IDX=No’ designation,” CRMLS said.
“Also, major portals like Zillow, Redfin, and other large broker/franchise websites already receive CRMLS VOW feeds, which include all listings, thereby making the new policy ineffective. This means listings will appear on these major sites but not on the nearly 30,000 CRMLS IDX websites or Realtor.com, which doesn’t use a VOW. Is that really what sellers want?”
CRMLS maintains that consumers will be the ones most affected by the new policy because VOW sites requires registration to view certain listing information so “they’ll need to create accounts on each VOW site just to view ALL available active listings.”
The MLS said it “opposes private listings and information silos, which harm marketplace transparency” and that policies that allow or encourage hiding listings “goes against CRMLS’s core tenets.”
Art Carter
That CRMLS is taking a stand against the new policy is not likely to shock those who read CRMLS CEO Art Carter’s January op-ed. In that nine-page missive, Carter emphatically stated that “CRMLS will not support, nor participate in an agreement, plan or scheme to hide available properties that are for sale from potential buyers who choose not to hire a real estate agent.”
Carter pointed out that the rules governing IDX policy, which is how listings appear in virtually all portals, “were established as part of a settlement agreement reached between NAR and the Department of Justice, which emphasized the importance of ensuring consumers have the same access and knowledge to available property listings as subscribing agents have in the MLS.”
A 2008 consent decree between NAR and the DOJ targeted IDX and VOW policies the federal agency alleged excluded brokers who adopted innovative business models. That settlement expired in 2018. However, the DOJ is currently investigating NAR and its MLS policies, including the CCP and related rules, which means the threat of legal action looms large over the industry as a whole.
“Requests made by market-influencing brokers to exclude their properties from IDX feeds, thereby withholding them from unrepresented buyers, could expose CRMLS to potential litigation from consumer advocacy groups and plaintiffs’ attorneys,” Carter wrote in his op-ed.
“A buyer who decides not to pay the costs or fees associated with hiring a buyer’s agent is entitled to full and fair access to every property available for sale, across the same platforms, and websites that are accessible to represented buyers.”
Carter also stressed that “CRMLS will not establish a Private Listing Network that is only accessible to CRMLS subscribers” because “[s]uch a system would clearly disadvantage consumers who choose to not work with a real estate agent, as they would have no access to the listed inventory.”
Some MLSs, such as MRED, have opted to create such a network, but Carter emphasized the litigation risk of such a move.
“The only way for these buyers to view available for sale properties would be to hire a CRMLS subscriber real estate agent,” Carter wrote.
“The case of an MLS making rules that force consumers to use a real estate agent to see properties that are for sale will be extensively litigated, and implementing such a policy could expose CRMLS to significant antitrust liability.”
Read CRMLS’s announcement (re-load page if document is not visible):
