The MLS business isn’t simple, and it never has been.
It takes people who understand the business, listen to their customers, and keep building. That’s something FBS has been doing for a long time.
If you’d like to learn more about FBS and Flexmls, you can do that here: https://flexmls.com/discover/
Many thanks to FBS for sponsoring Vendor Alley this September.
CRMLS Rejects Compass’s Demands, Stands Firm on Cooperation and Transparency
“After reviewing Compass, Inc.’s September 8, 2026, letter demanding that CRMLS not enforce rules governing submitting properties that are listed for sale for cooperation, CRMLS rejects their demands to allow for what it
views as Compass’s advocacy for anti-competitive practices and free riding. Now, CRMLS is preparing for potential litigation while still navigating more amicable ways to resolve claims.”
So this is regarding the earlier demand letter from Compass (which many MLS received) to stop fining their agents for violating local MLS policies. Here’s the CRMLS’ Open Letter, to Compass. I’m sure CRMLS would rather not go to court but it shows a high level of frustration.
“To stand against Compass’s threats of litigation that seek to compel unfair business practices, CRMLS aims to establish an MLS Cooperation Legal Defense Fund with intent to be supported by organizations and groups concerned with consumer transparency, equal listing access, and open competition, including legal-action programs, consumer advocates, attorneys, other MLSs, associations, vendors, and portals.”
We aren’t talking defending against patent trolling here, this move would be unprecedented.
Another thing I grabbed from CRMLS, CEO Art Carter’s Op-Ed article:
“Buyers should not have to choose an agent to work with simply to gain access to certain publicly marketed homes. Sellers should understand the potential tradeoffs of limiting how readily buyers and real estate professionals can discover and access their properties. And real estate professionals should be able to compete based on the quality of their service, not exclusive control over inventory.”
Amen.
I’m writing this from my hotel room at the CMLS Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, and Robert Reffkin will be here live for an interview on the main stage just after lunch. It’s going to be interesting.
The Industry Relations Podcast is now available on your favorite podcast player!
Overview
Greg calls in from CMLS in Fort Lauderdale, while Rob stays home enjoying some “joy of missing out.” Greg recaps the Click-Through Conference for MLS marketing professionals, where his keynote turned into a vendor’s candid pitch for how MLSs could structure and monetize vendor marketing. That leads Rob to ask why local monopolies need marketing departments at all, and the conversation widens into MLS competition, Sam DeBord’s Real Estate News piece on data monetization, and the question Rob says sits under all of it: who actually owns the MLS, and what does that ownership mean?
Key Takeaways
Connect with Rob and Greg
Watch us on YouTube
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Production and Editing Services by Sunbound Studios
Today is the day! Follow the link below and make sure you order all 3 books! Hell, order multiple books! Proceeds go to the Wounded Warrior Project!
Amazon Link => 3.3.1 – 3 Books to Benefit Wounded Warriors
Larson Skinner Adds Veteran Real Estate Counsel Andrew Mathews, Expanding MLS and Brokerage Practice
“Mathews will join Larson Skinner from Stoel Rives LLP, where his real estate practice focused on brokerage-related matters, regulatory and licensing compliance, risk management, real estate transactions, and disputes. He serves as outside counsel to the Commercial Brokers Association and has advised multiple listing services and brokerages on issues ranging from brokerage regulation and industry forms to competition, compensation, and emerging legal risks.”
Congrats to Larson Skinner and Andrew!
Compass Demands MLSs Stop “Weaponizing” Its Data For Agent Recruiting
“The MLS exists to facilitate real estate transactions — not to weaponize our operational data against us for competitor poaching.”
Last week Victor Lund sent an email to MLSs on behalf of Compass asking them to stop feeding Compass agent data to recruiting vendors. Courted, BrokerMetrics and Brokerkit got named. There’s a 30-day deadline, plus a line about “damage claims to the MLS” that Compass will generously release if the MLS plays along.
(Disclosure: BrokerMetrics is owned by Lone Wolf, the company Dan and I sold W+R Studios to, and Giant Steps does some work for Lone Wolf. CMAs come up below. Read accordingly.)
Everybody is going to write the recruiting story. The story I care about is demand number three. Per HousingWire, Compass also wants MLSs “to clarify Compass’s right as a participant broker to opt out of non-IDX/VOW vendor data distribution.
“Read that again. That’s an off switch. Recruiting software is just the safest place to test it, because nobody is going to march on the state capitol to save Courted. But the logic has no brakes. If a listing broker can pull its data out of a competitor’s recruiting tool, why not the competitor’s CRM? Its market reports? Its CMAs? First they came for the recruiting software…
We’ve had this fight before, and the brokers who wanted to use the data won. In 2014 The Realty Alliance pushed NAR to require MLSs to provide data feeds for broker AVMs. Rebecca Jensen, then running UtahRealEstate.com, said more than 85 percent of her brokers were against it. The NAR board passed it anyway, after a motion to send it back to committee narrowly failed. Since then, MLS content available to participants for brokerage purposes has had to be available for valuation too, and the listing broker doesn’t get a veto. Craig Cheatham said it best at the time: “Valuation is a core right and benefit, and opt out has no place in this area.”
Twelve years later, Compass wants the opt-out.
It’s also a little rich. In 2018 Inman reported that Benoit Mizner Simon, a Boston-area brokerage, spent nearly a year in acquisition talks with Compass and handed over “performance metrics of its top agents.” Talks ended in February. Within weeks, Compass hired eight of its top agents with $100,000 signing bonuses. Compass’s position back then was that all agents “have the right to choose the firm that is best for them.” In 2021 Compass sued REBNY, claiming the legacy firms were using industry rules to “thwart competitors,” including rules that kept agents from bringing clients with them when they switched firms. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, go Google, “Compass agent recruiting lawsuits” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Agent mobility was sacred when Compass was the one doing the recruiting.
So why push this now? Here’s my guess, and it is a guess. Compass is rolling its platform out across @properties, Corcoran and the rest of the Anywhere brands, calling it “the largest technology deployment in residential real estate history.” Every seat that platform fills is a seat some vendor used to sell. A broker-level off switch for vendor data, held by the company that now owns Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Sotheby’s, makes everybody else’s software a little harder to plug in. I can’t prove that’s the plan. But if I sold software into Anywhere franchise offices, I’d be reading this letter very slowly.
Here’s what I’d tell MLSs. Don’t answer this alone, and don’t answer it in 30 days. Send it to counsel, send it to CMLS, and pull out the 2014 policy. If licensing agent-level production data to recruiters is a problem (and reasonable people think it might be), fix it with a rule that applies to every participant the same way. Just stop short of a side deal with the biggest one.Because the first MLS that grants Compass an off switch will get the same letter from every broker with a lawyer.
FBS is 100% focused on MLS success, which means solutions built around each MLS’s market, not a one-size-fits-all approach to serving the brokers and agents they work with.
That partnership shows up in the solutions MLSs can offer their brokers, from broker-directed marketing to direct access to Flexmls from the broker’s own technology tools.
FBS gives MLSs listing input and maintenance options that keep the MLS at the center, as the primary source for listing entry, while preserving the value, structure, and benefits of the MLS ecosystem. Whatever a broker’s setup, the MLS remains the rules validation engine through Flexmls, ensuring flexibility without sacrificing data quality.
Brokers get solutions for their agents, agents get to work the way that fits their operation, and the MLS still gets the complete, accurate data its ecosystem depends on. It’s how FBS builds: flexible enough to meet everyone where they are, without anyone getting boxed in.
One Partner. Unlimited Potential.
Thanks to FBS for sponsoring Vendor Alley.
You don’t have to ask me twice to spend time with Katie talking about CMAs. Thanks for having me!
3 Western MLSs launch ‘Orion’ data exchange
ODS founders Tina Grimes, CEO of Southern Oregon MLS, and Casie Conlon, CEO of Cascades East MLS, explained the genesis of this initiative: “Naming the initiative Orion Real Estate Data Exchange reflects our mutual vision for a borderless, data-informed real estate ecosystem. With consumer migration between Oregon, Nevada, and California, our objective is to empower our members with tools and access that help them best serve clients wherever they are.”
We’ve spent two years arguing about whether a national MLS should exist. Panels, position papers, a declaration of principles. Meanwhile MetroList, Northern Nevada Regional MLS and Oregon Data Share just built a working piece of one across three states and framed it as a service for people moving to Reno.
That’s the third one of these I’ve written up this year. Back in April the Southeast MLS Alliance added realMLS and got to 118,000 subscribers across five markets, and I tipped my hat to Joesph Cullom, because connecting the pipes without merging is the humane version of consolidation. I still think that. I’ve just started wanting to know who ends up owning the pipes.
One line in the announcement is doing more work than the rest of it combined:
“We’re starting with practical access today while building the infrastructure for a much deeper level of data sharing tomorrow.”
That’s George Pickard at NNRMLS, and the tomorrow half is the part worth reading twice.
Phase one is a shared front end. Members see listings across all three markets in Rapattoni-powered tools. Nice benefit. Not a story. Phase two pushes the data into each organization’s own primary MLS system. That’s shared infrastructure. And shared infrastructure eventually needs somebody to run it, fund it, and decide who else gets in.
Nobody’s saying who that is. No governance structure, no subscriber counts, no word on who’s funding the build. What we do get is the Rapattoni mention, and Rapattoni is the quietly interesting part. Niki Rapattoni is still running the company she and Andy started in 1970. While Cotality and most of the rest of the legacy MLS stack were getting tucked into private equity portfolios, MLS system vendors like Rapattoni and FBS have managed to stay independent. So the connective tissue for three states is now sitting on top of the one of the MLS vendors nobody managed to roll up.
And MetroList keeps shipping. I said the same thing about them when Nora launched, so at this point it isn’t a compliment, it’s a pattern. Now they’re doing it again with two neighbors and a migration stat: 129,000 people moved between California, Nevada and Oregon in 2024. That’s a refreshingly boring reason to build something. Consumers moved, so the data should follow them.
So here’s the question nobody asked at launch. In year three, who owns Orion? Phase two is when that answer gets expensive to change.
3 different books. 3 different authors. One day to support a great cause.
September 30.
Supporting Wounded Warrior Project.
