The Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) and Compass have settled a legal fight that’s been running for 16 months, and most of the commentary has focused on “who won.”
I’d rather focus on what the outcome actually preserves, what changes, and where it should give the rest of the industry pause.
A win for the principle we’ve been arguing
At its core, this settlement is a win for consumers and real estate professionals because it preserves the principle we have been fighting for throughout this dispute. Listings should not be held within private brokerage networks that give one company, and its customers, preferential access.
Together with SB 6091, which passed the Washington State Legislature earlier this year with overwhelming bipartisan support, this settlement helps ensure that private listing networks cannot take hold in Washington. We applaud NWMLS for protecting an open and transparent system.
Where I still see a real risk to buyers
That said, I have concerns about what this settlement could mean for homebuyers, particularly those who haven’t yet engaged an agent.
If “First Look” listings live in the MLS aren’t displayed across all consumer-facing real estate websites, buyers may no longer be able to visit a single site and feel confident they’re seeing the full range of homes for sale. They may need to engage an agent earlier in their search simply to get access to the complete inventory through the MLS.
From a consumer-transparency standpoint, that feels like a step backward. One of the great advances in real estate over the last two decades has been giving consumers broad, direct access to listing information that was once available primarily through agents.
We’d hate to see the industry drift back toward a fragmented system, where buyers have to check multiple places or accept different levels of access, to understand what’s actually for sale. That’s an implication of this settlement we’ll be watching closely.
What First Look actually changes for our agents
First Look gives sellers more flexibility in how they prepare and introduce a home to market, without accumulating days on market before they’re ready. We support that flexibility because, importantly, it doesn’t come at the expense of transparency or equal access. First Look listings still enter the NWMLS and reach all 30,000-plus members.
I don’t expect this to change how agents bring listings to market. Most agents and sellers already understand that broad exposure creates competition and generally gives a seller the strongest possible outcome.
There will always be circumstances where a phased approach is necessary, and our agents now have that option to offer clients. But I expect it to remain the exception, not the norm — as some brokerages would prefer, to everyone’s detriment.
Where the line actually belongs
I don’t think seller choice and market transparency are competing ideas. Sellers should have a say in how their home is marketed, and there are clearly legitimate circumstances where someone needs or wants to limit public exposure. The system already accommodates that.
Where I draw the line is when “seller choice” becomes the justification for withholding listings from the broader real estate community and limiting them to a single brokerage or private network.
In our experience, most sellers aren’t asking their agent to restrict who can see their home. They’re asking how to get the best possible outcome, and in the vast majority of cases, broad exposure and open competition from Day 1 is what serves the seller best.
The same principle applies to buyers. They should be able to trust that their agent has access to the full range of available homes, regardless of which brokerage represents them. You can preserve seller choice without building a system of haves and have-nots, and I think this settlement demonstrates that it’s possible to do both.
Why this matters well beyond Washington
I think this settlement could absolutely influence how other MLSs approach coming-soon listings, marketing flexibility, and broker competition, and I hope they look closely at what NWMLS has accomplished.
The takeaway isn’t simply that NWMLS now allows a coming-soon status. It’s that they found a way to give sellers and agents real marketing flexibility while preserving a system where listing information is shared with the entire brokerage community, not fenced off by whoever’s willing to pay for the fence.
That’s the balance I hope other MLSs take from this. The industry doesn’t have to choose between innovation and transparency, or between seller flexibility and equal access. What we should be resisting, everywhere, is the growth of private listing networks that fragment inventory and hand one brokerage a financial advantage by controlling who gets to see what’s for sale.
Washington has long led on building a cooperative real estate system around broadly shared information. Between this settlement and the state’s recent legislation on private listing networks, I think Washington has given the rest of the industry a workable model: one that evolves without sacrificing the transparency that ultimately benefits buyers, sellers and agents alike.
OB Jacobi is the co-president of Windermere Real Estate.
