WAV Group's Marilyn Wilson will spotlight this critical conversation about the urgent changes needed to safeguard our industry and ensure we're putting consumers first.
The Clear Cooperation Policy, which mandates REALTORS® to list properties on NAR-affiliated MLSs within one day of signing the listing agreement, is under scrutiny from the Department of Justice (DOJ), which has revived its investigation into the association’s rules. NAR has announced plans to appeal a court decision allowing the DOJ’s inquiry to continue. The discussion has also reached emergency status because of a Clear Cooperation Lawsuit scheduled to go to trial in November.
At WAV Group, we are passionate about finding ways to ensure the long-term success of the real estate industry by protecting the best interests of real estate consumers. The on-going spirited debate around the Clear Cooperation Policy centers around different brokerage and MLS beliefs about the ways to serve real estate consumers.
This is where you will be informed about system updates, rule changes, new features, new products offered though the MLS, and hopefully find invites to events that allow you to network in your real estate community with gatherings.
What we really see here in the case of RealPage and the MLS is related to many factors that precipitate the trends in the marketplace.
After receiving about my 15th call is as many weeks from a distraught Association Executive telling me they just been fired, mostly for irrational and indefensible reasons, I just had to get my thoughts down to see what we can do to fix this systemic problem. I wrote an article entitled Why are so many of our strongest Association Executives getting fired?, about the ill-fated careers of many amazing Association staff leaders.
Now that the attorneys have been awarded nearly $1 billion, I believe we are going to see a lot more attorneys come out the woodwork to try to find additional vulnerabilities in our policies and procedures/traditions. I believe the attorneys and DOJ are just getting warmed up. Here’s one potential vulnerability that keeps me up at night….
Since the Biden Administration announced their priority to “un-tie” real estate 4 years ago, I have been urging my MLS clients to get serious about opening up their subscription services to all licensees.
Today brokerages representing over 600,000 agents cannot or will not require NAR membership because of their proposed lawsuit settlements. Whether from litigation, DOJ rulings or the belief from brokerages (especially the $2 billion crowd) that NAR let them down, it is anything but business as usual right now. All Association leaders need to be open to new ways to doing business to be able to ride out this storm. Forward-looking, strategic AE’s recognize these vulnerabilities. They are effectively partnering with their volunteer leaders to push the envelope, eliminating outdated or poorly attended programs and focusing their attention on preparing for future scenarios that may be foisted on the industry from lawyers, the DOJ or some other unknown threat.
What would real estate be without its unending existential threats from the legal system?
I do not know why Associations and MLSs do not impune this broker’s conduct with sanctions that are in place for this egregious behavior.
These systems are complex, allowing the MLS to configure playbooks for different types of violations on both images and imputed text.
