Effective July 1, 2018, a licensee may subscribe to the MLS of his or her choosing, providing their broker participates in that MLS too. Under this new policy, the MLS must offer no-cost waivers to licensees who currently subscribe to another MLS.
Take the MLS of Choice Poll
At a minimum, a licensee must subscribe to at least one MLS in which the broker participates after July 1.
The summary of the NAR rules change is outlined here.
There has been a lot of buzz about this new ruling over the past few months. Those in favor of the ruling believe it will save agents money and allow more flexibility about which MLS makes the most sense for each agent’s business.
Those against the ruling are concerned about the enforcement of the waivers and the ability to truly track that an agent is a member of another MLS.
It could be just because it is still summer, but since the rule has gone into place I have not heard much buzz about the positive or negative ramifications of this decision. My guess is that most agents will continue to belong to whatever number of MLSs they already belong to. They have gotten used to the data access, marketing exposure and technologies offered from the MLS network they have created for themselves. Like all of us, agents are creatures of habit and thus few will probably adjust their behaviors to take advantage of MLS of Choice.
Click HERE to answer a short poll and I’ll publish the results so we can all learn more about what’s going on now that MLS of Choice is in effect.
Take the MLS of Choice Poll
