One year ago, headlines discussed the implications of the coming changes surrounding how and when buyer’s agents are compensated for helping their clients purchase homes. While that policy shift has largely faded quietly into the everyday practice of selling and buying homes in the US, a new controversy is brewing—and it has even greater potential effects on Long Island homeowners.
Clear Cooperation is a longstanding policy implemented by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to help ensure that all buyers have equal and fair access to the nationwide inventory of homes for sale. Its core requirement is that all real estate agents and brokers in every state submit any home they have a contract to sell into the MLS within one business day of beginning to market the home publicly. Simple to understand, yet it’s a policy that is now becoming a major contention point as nationwide brokerages step into the ring to dispute whether Clear Cooperation is, in fact, a policy that benefits consumers.
Will Ending Clear Cooperation Offer Sellers Greater Choice on How to Sell Their Homes?
This is the central argument of Compass CEO and Founder Robert Reffkin, who has campaigned strongly for the end of Clear Cooperation. In numerous op-ed pieces published in news outlets and on his social media, he has clearly stated his belief that “The MLS shouldn’t be able to dictate how homeowners sell their home.” He believes that sellers should have the opportunity to quietly market their homes to only a select pool of buyers if they wish. He is not calling for the end of the MLS, but rather a diversification of options.
It should be noted, however, that Reffkin’s company has created, implemented, and marketed several exclusive programs that place inventory in front of the eyes of Compass agents and their clients only. He hasstated, “Consumer demand drives industry evolution, and there is clear and growing seller demand for Private Exclusives and off-MLS public marketing. Consumer choice will win, and the industry will follow.”
Are Exclusive and Off-Market Listing Sales a Disservice to Sellers and a Potential Fair Housing Violation?
Despite the prolific arguments from Reffkin and other supporters of ending Clear Cooperation, just as many brokerages maintain that Clear Cooperation works. President of Windermere Real Estate, OB Jacobi, took one of the strongest stances against Reffkin recently, publishing his own op-end and scathing social media rebukethat stated, “The real estate industry and Fair Housing are under threat because of the blind ambition of Compass, a national real estate brokerage whose antics, under the guise of “seller choice”, threaten to return our industry to a real estate caste system, where listings are hidden behind the walls of a private network, and only the privileged few have access. What they propose perpetuates inequities that have long plagued the real estate market and threaten fair housing laws that our communities have worked tirelessly to enact for decades now.”
Zillow, the online home platform, made a decisive move by declaring that “Listings that are publicly promoted to consumers but not made widely available via the MLS will be barred from Zillow.com starting in May.” Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s chief industry development officer, said, “Our belief is that, if a listing is going to be marketed to a buyer or a subset of buyers, it really needs to be made available to all buyers.”
eXp Realty, another nationwide real estate brokerage, supported Zillow’s announcement. Numerous other brokerages, including our managing broker, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, have not publicly announced their position on Clear Cooperation.
NAR Maintains Clear Cooperation—For Now
At the end of March, NAR announced that Clear Cooperation would continue, but with the addition of a new MLS field: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers. This new field allows sellers to delay when their home gets marketed through the IDX, which feeds the property out widely to Zillow and other platforms. While it’s not an amendment to Clear Cooperation itself, it is a step toward the central idea of Reffkin’s stance—allowing sellers choice in how they sell their homes.
As for our personal position on Clear Cooperation, the bottom line is that agents have a fiduciary duty to serve their clients well. If most prospective buyers never see the home, how can that listing agent say they served the client well and brought them the highest and best possible offer?
Marketing a home with the latest and most innovative marketing techniques to reach the widest pool of well-qualified buyers ensures that sellers can be confident in the offer they accept. We never want our clients to feel that they potentially left money on the table, and ending Clear Cooperation brings that concern to the forefront of every transaction.
If you have any questions about the Clear Cooperation discussion and how it impacts the upcoming sale or purchase of your Long Island home, please reach out anytime.
The Pesce & Lanzillotta Team, at BHHS Laffey International Realty
Office: 516-888-9711
Email: info@pl-team.com
