This is the first in a two-part interview with Howard Hanna Real Estate Services CEO Howard “Hoby” Hanna IV. The interview was conducted in the weeks leading up to the independent brokerage’s settlement on May 2 in the Gibson antitrust commission lawsuit. Read the second part HERE.
In choosing to keep its pocket listing rule and add a new delayed marketing option, the National Association of Realtors has been accused of trying to mollify its biggest broker members.
Did it work? Not according to Howard W. “Hoby” Hanna IV, the CEO of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services.
Inman reached out to Hanna last month to ask how NAR’s new Delayed Marketing Exempt Listings category might impact Howard Hanna’s listing displays. The 1.5-million-member trade group added the category after choosing to keep the Clear Cooperation Policy, a controversial rule that requires listing brokers to submit listings to Realtor-affiliated multiple listing services within one business day of publicly marketing them.
NAR’s new listing category allows brokers to keep listings off of MLS subscribers’ Internet Data Exchange (IDX) listing websites, but not Virtual Office Websites (VOWs), which require registration in order to see certain information.
Hanna told Inman that as a result of the change, Howard Hanna is “seriously considering moving to registration in all markets” and is looking at options to re-launch its Find It First program for listings that had not yet been entered into the MLS as well as for sellers choosing to keep their listings off of the MLS altogether.
According to Hanna, Howard Hanna first tested a VOW in the summer of 2023 in the Cleveland area in Northeast Ohio, where the company has a big market share, and the move resulted in increased traffic and better lead generation with more qualified leads.
“We have not moved completely to all markets but are now looking with pure intent to maximize our customer experience and create the best consumer experience for buyers and sellers,” Hanna told Inman in a statement.
“We also think our Buy & Borrow Bundle with Find it First will tie into creating a great experience for the clients that choose Howard Hanna.”
The company’s Buy & Borrow Bundle offers a closing cost credit of 0.5 percent of a buyer’s loan amount — up to $10,000 — for qualified buyers who choose to buy their home with Howard Hanna and also get a mortgage with Howard Hanna Mortgage Services.
But Hanna also offered his thoughts on long-term changes he’s contemplating for the company, including the potentially industry-changing step of leaving NAR and its affiliated MLSs.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Inman: Some say that VOWs present a registration hurdle that people might not want to bother with when they’re searching websites for listings; they may see the registration requirement and leave. Is that not something you’re concerned about? You also mentioned the customer experience — how is that a better experience?
Hoby Hanna: How many retail, consumer-based websites are you personally registered on so that you get a deeper level of retail experience? You can get Nordstrom’s customers to sign up, and they have your information, and you’ll get information about bonus days, new items, new luxury goods and other things because you’re a customer before the general public does.
If [a customer] can know about the market earlier, faster, quicker and know about special items before everybody else, that doesn’t hurt the market. It just makes those of us who may offer that experience pick up more clients and have the ability to cross-market different products and other things. So I’m not as concerned.
You mentioned before how having these Find It First listings helps with stickiness — people go to your website to see the latest listings. The new policy around Delayed Marketing Exempt Listings allows you to have those listings in your VOW, right? So if other brokers, which at this point also include Redfin and Zillow, have VOW sites, it means they can display these delayed marketing listings as well. How do you feel about that?
That’s part of the competition, and they can do that. I actually think that’s another proverbial shoe that’s gonna drop. Whether you want to do it as a VOW feed and have those there, or whether you don’t and go away from a VOW and make it more just that you’re gonna get our Find It First or [office] exclusives, all you have to do is register.
We’re having conversations with people both at Zillow and Redfin because if we go to everything Find It First and exclusives and not feed from VOW or IDX at all with those listings, they’re not gonna have them. They want to make sure they can still showcase our listings for their business model that they may have to change, and maybe they have to pay for those listings in some capacity, as opposed to just receiving them through an MLS feed.
I’d be willing to send them that if they’re willing to accept it and maybe work a deal out where they’re giving us our leads back on those and not monetizing them to other partners if they want that ability for a period of time.
What is it that you can do that would prevent Zillow and Redfin from getting your listings? What is it that they’re bargaining with you for?
I won’t put them in a VOW. I won’t have a VOW. I don’t need a VOW. I don’t need IDX. I might not be in MLS anymore. The world’s changed. I don’t need to listen to NAR. There might not be MLS five years from now, if people are going to dictate where I have to send things.
Quite honestly, this rule that they changed, the thing’s called Clear Cooperation. We don’t need to cooperate with each other anymore. That was taken away by the lawyers.
We love to cooperate with other brokers. We love to share our data and our listings, those that the seller says, “Fine, put it into the open market and share.” But if we want to [we can] put everything on our website and say to the consumer, “We don’t put it in an MLS anymore. We do direct feeds to Zillow. We do direct feeds to Realtor.com. We have it on our website. We send a letter to every broker in the country and say you’re still welcome to show a house.”
We’re not going to follow rules based on NAR telling us how to operate our business. That’s not the role NAR should play.
Is that your plan?
I’m considering it.
