At the Realtors Legislature meeting earlier this week, MLS executives were told they would be responsible for ensuring real estate agents and brokers comply with the new commission rules.
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An attorney for the 1.5 million-member trade group told hundreds of MLS executives at this week’s mid-year meeting that multiple listing services will be responsible for enforcing rule changes that are part of the National Association of Realtors’ proposed pushback. part of the monopoly settlement agreement.
NAR associate counsel Deanne Rymarowicz spoke Sunday at the MLS Association of Realtors Legislative Conference executive meeting in Washington, D.C.
Dean Remarovich
She detailed some of the policy changes included in the settlement, which NAR said MLS must implement by Aug. 17, even before a November court hearing in which a judge will decide whether to ultimately approve the deal.
On Friday, NAR informed its members of the key changes required in the settlement, noting that the changes had been reviewed by the MLS Emerging Issues and Technology Advisory Committee and adopted by the NAR leadership team.
Remarovich elaborated on the deal’s requirement for a written agreement with the buyer, then told attendees what they’d been waiting for.
“Well, here’s the big question from everyone in the room: Who’s running this?” she said, drawing laughter from some attendees.
“It’s you. The MLS will be responsible for enforcing the rules regarding the written agreement just as your MLS already enforces the rules you already have. Like any rules you establish, this will be a complaint-driven process.
“Now, importantly, the MLS is not required to receive a copy of the written agreement, but it can request it as a matter of local execution. So, it’s up to your MLS whether or not you want to receive a copy of the written agreement.
NAR Associate Counsel Deanne Rymarowicz’s slides from the MLS Association of Realtors Legislative Conference Executive Meeting in Washington, D.C., May 5, 2024
“Good luck to you, good luck to you,” Remarovich said at the end of his speech, prompting more laughter.
After the meeting, Merri Jo Cowen, CEO of Florida-based Stellar MLS, which has 84,000 subscribers, told Inman she wanted more information.
Merri Jo Cowan
“[It’s]Our role as an MLS remains unclear when it comes to the requirement to execute a buyer’s brokerage agreement prior to showing,” Cowen said. “More guidance from NAR is needed.”
Cowen went into the meeting knowing her MLS would be responsible for changing profile fields related to the settlement, including that the deal prohibited inclusion of buyer’s broker compensation in the MLS.
Noting that dealing with the changes has been “very stressful,” she said removing the compensation field was simple enough, although she’s working on figuring out how to add the new seller offer field.
She said she personally would rather not own the new field “because if it comes with liability” [is] Misunderstood as a replacement for the compensation field,” but her subscribers are demanding it.
Currently, Stellar MLS has a franchise field that is used to close franchise fields with select lists that she does not intend to change, but is not used to enter listings into the MLS. She wondered if buyer’s agent compensation could be added to the list of options there.
“We don’t want to leave room for creativity,” Cowan said. She said she wanted to reach a settlement where possible so as not to leave any room for liability on anyone’s part.
Cowan said many of her subscribers were confused about the settlement. However, she noted that sellers can still pay buyer’s agents — just not through the MLS.
“Nothing has really changed,” she said. “Just pick up the phone instead of looking for solutions.”
Cowen has been contacted by third-party companies offering her ways to aggregate salaries outside of the MLS, and her answer is a resounding “no!” “Don’t use my data,” she told Inman.
Cowen said she knew “this was going to come back” when she attended a joint 2018 symposium on real estate competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
A huge question for the industry is whether the Justice Department will weigh in on the NAR settlement, just as it weighed in on the MLS PIN settlement in another Antitrust Commission case called Nosalek.
Regardless, Cowen believes NAR will implement the settlement changes anyway, otherwise the association will remain open to litigation.
Send an email to Andrea V. Brambila.
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