One of the nation’s largest MLSs recently voted to overhaul its board of directors in a move that could ease decision-making, remove the appearance of politics and put governance at arm’s length from the agents and brokers competing in the state.
Shareholders and the existing board of the Arizona Regional MLS (ARMLS) approved the change to install an independent board of directors later this year. None of the new board members will be licensed to transact real estate in the state.
Such a move comes at a time when the various governance structures of the industry have been under intense scrutiny from state and federal regulators and attorneys who appear eager to file class action lawsuits targeting past rules and regulations.
The new board will have sole discretion to make decisions around policy, legal and financial issues for the organization. An advisory group that includes practicing agents and brokers will weigh in and provide counsel, ARMLS CEO Matt Consalvo told Inman in an interview about the change.
Other MLSs are likely discussing the same or similar changes. Here’s how things will play out in Arizona.
INMAN: How long has this been in the works?
Consalvo: We first started asking ourselves, is there a better decision-making model? Let’s go back to 2012. We’ve changed our governance a couple of different times over the years.
But it was February of 2025 that we really asked ourselves, is there a better decision-making model in light of all the scrutiny facing the industry, in light of all the need for the MLS to be more nimble and more business-focused than we’ve ever been.
What’s the biggest change here?
What you would see as a traditional MLS board of directors that has been made up for the last 60-plus years in our industry, we still have that body preserved. They’re a shareholder advisory council. What they don’t have is fiduciary obligation to the corporation.
When it comes down to making legal, fiduciary or policy decisions, they may have an opinion that they would like to recommend to the board, but it will be the board of directors under counsel and guidance from other advisors that will make that decision.
Why move away from broker-led decision-making?
Taking that decision out of the hands of competitors who wield brokerages and who have the opportunity to earn commissions…on those decisions, I think it’s just a better decision-making model to put in the hands of somebody who is educated on the industry.
We don’t want folks who don’t understand the transaction. We want folks who are educated on the industry who take advice and counsel from agents, brokers and the shareholders to formulate the best decisions for the MLS.
In a way it’s removing politics from the board, too, or the potential for politics, right?
Yeah, exactly. If nothing else, the perception of politics in the eyes of plaintiffs’ counsel.
How much of this is about legal scrutiny?
It didn’t start like that. It started with what’s our best decision-making model? But as we progressed into 2025, and through 2025, we got to a point to understand the MLS is just facing more scrutiny than they have in the prior 10 years or the prior 50 years, it’s probably a good decision-making hygiene to bring data and to bring non-participating folks to those decisions.
It certainly looks better in the eyes of somebody who wants to poke us. The foundation of why we did it is we find decisions are moving faster at the MLS than we’ve ever seen them.
Is this going to become a trend?
I do think that large MLS executives are asking themselves, is this a good idea or not?
I think we’ve seen some subpoenas, and we’ve got some questions from other folks, and we’ve gotten some folks poking at us, like, ‘Your board is made up of only big brokers, your board’s made up of only small brokers.
The composition of the board has gotten enough attention. What we want to do is just stop this side smoke screen, red herring conversation and get back to great decisions. So I do think there are others that are having the conversation.
You mentioned subpoenas — what’s happening there?
Not pointing at something specific. I think some folks who come around our industry want to go fishing right now. They get judges to sponsor and sign off on these fairly broad subpoenas.
Any other examples come to mind where nimbleness would have helped, but you didn’t have the ability to act quickly?
The inability to act quickly has never stopped us because we call special meetings or we require folks to come together for things. We are a very responsive, very progressive group at ARMLS. So it’s never stopped us from what we want.
It is easier to get five or six people engaged in a strategic topic that expands three, four or five years than it is to get 18 folks in that same conversation on terms that expire fairly quickly and are rotating in and out of the room.
If you’ve done a lot of work with associations, it’s unfortunate that sometimes strategic goals last for three years, but they’re turning over a third of their leadership every year.
You said some decisions ahead may be unpopular — what do you mean?
We’re going to have to split some hairs in the next few months that are going to make us unpopular with some segments and popular with others.
Is this an immediate transition?
We are not going to hit the big red button, blow everything up and emerge in August completely different. We are intentional. We are architects and not firefighters.
We have a transition plan that’ll last a year and a half, maybe two years that we’re going to transition through so that we don’t just wipe out all of our historical knowledge all at once.
