“Wounded Warrior Project’s mental health programs include WWP Talk, which calls warriors and family members each week, and Warrior Care Network, which provides intensive outpatient treatment through four academic medical centers, according to the organization.”
Sam, Kevin and I are really honored by the coverage at Inman News gave us on this special day. So, we decided to re-launch the promo we did back in September by giving all profits from book sales this week to the Wounded Warriors project.
The Industry Relations Podcast is now available on your favorite podcast player!
Overview Rob and Greg are back from the NAR annual convention in New Orleans. They talk about lower attendance, whether NAR committee meetings should be open to members and the press, and Compass’s new policy barring its W-2 employees from NAR volunteer leadership roles. Greg shares what he heard in 14 meetings with MLS executives about OpenRE, and the hosts disagree over whether OpenRE is a national data repository, a listing input tool, or mostly a lobbying effort. They close with their favorite conversations from the convention.
Key Takeaways
NAR attendance fell from over 30,000 in past years to about 10,000 this year.
Greg blames a perfect storm: the lingering effects of COVID, a down market, and infighting within the industry.
Rob suggests NAR could focus only on business (votes and committee meetings) and open those meetings to members and the press.
Greg points out that companies commonly keep the press out of strategy meetings.
Compass now bars its W-2 employees from NAR volunteer leadership positions.
Rob sees the policy as a way to reduce antitrust risk, not as retaliation against NAR.
Greg thinks announcing it during the NAR convention was gamesmanship.
The policy could affect NAR First Vice President Jennifer Branchini’s path to the presidency.
MLS execs placed OpenRE somewhere between “nothing burger” and “distraction.”
MLS execs say they understand brokers’ frustrations and are open to working with them.
Greg believes the real broker pain point is double entry across multiple MLSs, which is a problem BLX could solve.
Greg wonders when Cotality might acquire Ocusell.
A broker consortium might reach about 30% of a market’s data, while the MLS has all of it.
Portals want complete, checked, ad-quality listings, and they doubt OpenRE can deliver that.
Rob argues OpenRE either adds little value or would end up replacing the MLS.
Greg gives OpenRE about a 10% chance of success and warns against reading too much into so few details.
Q1 will show whether OpenRE is a real company or just a press release.
One MLS has over 30 active status types, an example of how complex listing data is.
When most people think about buying or selling a home, they think about agents, open houses, and mortgage rates. But every consumer portal, appraisal, mortgage underwrite runs on MLS data.
Earlier this year, Lucie Fortier, Head of MLS Solutions for ICE Mortgage Technology, discussed how the MLS is the engine behind every real estate transaction. Portals, AI tools and PropTech platforms leverage MLS data. Agents, brokers, loan officers, appraisers and more operate within an ecosystem the MLS makes possible. Without comprehensive cooperation, none of it works.
Why the system is worth protecting
The American MLS system is rare. In most countries, real estate data is fragmented, unreliable or unavailable to the average consumer. What exists here is the result of decades of cooperation among professionals who understand that a shared system serves everyone better than a fragmented one.
That’s not a small thing. It’s the foundation that everything else is built on. And it doesn’t maintain itself.
What this moment is about
New tools and platforms are only as good as the data powering them. That data lives in the MLS − and the organizations investing in it are the ones that will matter on the other side of whatever comes next.
The Industry Relations Podcast is now available on your favorite podcast player!
Overview
In this Election Day special, Rob and Greg step outside their usual real estate coverage to talk about the midterms and what they mean for housing. Greg voted; Rob didn’t, and won’t. They debate whether any election outcome can fix housing affordability, how to frame the trade-offs of adding supply, and whether AI changes the equation entirely. They also preview their trip to NAR NXT in New Orleans.
Key Takeaways
Both expect Democrats to take the House and Senate, with Texas, South Carolina, and Michigan as races to watch.
Rob argues no matter who you vote for, you get John McCain.
Greg says housing policy is mostly local, so federal races change little.
Rob argues the midterm housing agenda (NAR, Inman coverage, “Let America Build”) is tinkering on the edges.
Democratic housing proposals center on low-income housing credits and Section 8 vouchers.
California’s ADU rules are one example of deregulation from the left.
Greg’s pitch to NIMBY neighbors: more housing means your kids can live next to you.
Rob counters that adding real supply means existing home values drop, and no candidate campaigns on that.
Rob says affordability requires a 50% price drop, doubled real incomes, or sub-2% rates.
Greg argues it can be a combination of smaller moves rather than one big fix.
Greg suggests AI-driven abundance could make today’s affordability formulas obsolete.
Rob says housing predates industry and will always have an economy around it.
Both agree “a rising tide lifts all boats” has broken down, and housing shows it most clearly.
Charles Murray’s “super zips” illustrate how rich and poor no longer share towns or schools.
“When MLS leadership decides to make a move, there are three primary paths to consider: full consolidation, cooperation or an outright sale. Preparing for each requires addressing distinct operational, financial and governance hurdles.”
Eben Moran lays out the three doors pretty cleanly. Merge into one organization. Share a data feed with your neighbor while keeping your own brand, rules and local fields. Or sell to a private equity group, a tech vendor or a broker coalition.
My favorite detail is the timelines. Consolidation and cooperation each run 12 to 24 months. A sale? Three to six months from valuation to closing. Turns out the fastest way to change your MLS is to stop owning it. (Whether that’s a feature or a bug depends on who you ask at the lobby bar.)
These conversations are only going to increase. Subscriber counts are flat, budgets are tight, and the “go it alone” math gets harder every year.
Disclosure (shameless plug?): T3 Sixty has brought my company, Giant Steps, into a few of these discussions, mostly on the valuation side. That’s usually where things get real. Everyone loves the idea of exploring a merger right up until someone has to put a number on what each MLS is actually worth, and what that number buys at the board table. Eben makes the same point: agreeing to explore is the easy part.
My advice: get the valuation done before you need it. Even if you never merge, cooperate or sell, knowing what your MLS is worth changes how your board weighs every other decision. You can’t negotiate from a number you don’t have.
We still have a few slots open at NAR NXT if you are interested:
Super fun to join James and Keith on their pod, Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered Podcast. I was just happy to have some backup on my conversations with Rob.
…it remains unknown when and how much eligible class members will receive from the settlement fund.
Nobody in this business is going to lose a minute of sleep over that, and we should be honest about why.
AJ LaTrace at Inman got the filings first. As of September 30th there was $711,251,720.86 parked in Morgan Stanley accounts, which threw off $17,705,101.82 in interest over nine months. The appeals are finished. JND Legal Administration, the administrator, is in the middle of a court-ordered audit it didn’t ask for, and in August it tried to get one of the special masters disqualified. That went about as well as you’d expect.
Three years ago last Saturday a Missouri jury found the commission structure was rigged. Since then this industry rewrote the forms, retrained the entire membership on buyer agreements, changed how compensation gets displayed in every MLS in the country, and absorbed a wave of follow-on suits it is still absorbing. What it got back was a release covering the associations, hundreds of MLSs, thousands of small brokerages and their agents, and practice changes that are settled law now. The “it’s still on appeal” argument died in August.
That was a good trade. I think most of this industry would make it again.
Here’s the part worth remembering. The release stopped at $2 billion. Every brokerage with an NAR member as principal and 2022 residential volume at or under that line got covered for free. Everything above it got carved out and handed an invoice: 0.0025 times average annual transaction volume, deposited within 120 days, to buy into a deal it had no part in negotiating. Michael Ketchmark, plaintiffs’ lead counsel, told Inman at the time that the $2 billion “was a negotiated number with NAR.” Inman counted 93 firms on the wrong side of it.
So yes, it was a good settlement. It was a good settlement for NAR, for the associations, for the MLSs, and for every brokerage under the line, which is nearly all of them. Ninety-three firms landed on the other side of that line, each one free to buy into a deal it had no part in writing. If you want to know whether this industry got off easy, don’t ask NAR. Ask one of them.
Search and reporting are where most people first notice AI in real estate. They are also just the starting point. MLS organizations have an opportunity to tap into using AI in ways that go beyond platform search, helping agents work smarter, improving data quality and creating a more personalized experience for everyone involved.
Here are three areas where AI can make a practical difference across MLS technology:
1. Predictive market insights
Timing matters in real estate, and AI can help MLSs, brokers and agents see shifts sooner. By analyzing historical trends, current conditions, and outside factors such as interest rates and economic indicators, AI can help surface patterns that are often easy to miss.
Consider a neighborhood where inventory is tightening ahead of a price increase, or an area where search and engagement data point to rising buyer demand. Insights like these are actionable. Agents can use them to refine pricing strategies, advise clients with more confidence and adjust marketing while conditions are still changing.
For MLSs, the same analytics can inform strategic planning by showing where the market is heading and how the platform can best serve its members.
2. Conversational tools and voice search
MLS platforms are powerful, but they can be challenging to navigate, particularly for newer agents or anyone working across several systems. AI-powered virtual assistants can offer a simpler way in. They can walk a user through entering a listing, adjusting a search filter or finding a specific report at any hour.
Voice search is also becoming increasingly popular. An agent between showings could ask for “three-bedroom homes in Riverside under $500K” and see results right away, without typing. Features like these make the MLS platform easier to use, encourage adoption, and help it feel current and responsive.
3. Fraud detection and risk management
Confidence in listing data is central to how an MLS operates. AI can help protect it by monitoring for unusual activity, such as sudden and unexplained price changes, duplicate entries or patterns that suggest manipulation.
It can also support agent verification by flagging inconsistent credentials or irregular login behavior that may point to impersonation. As platforms connect to more systems and data moves between them, safeguards like these become more important. Identifying risk early helps MLSs maintain data integrity, protect users, and support compliance without adding to staff workload.
Why it matters
Each of these use cases benefit the whole real estate ecosystem: MLSs, agents, brokers and consumers. Agents and brokers can spend more time on client relationships, consumers get a better experience, and platforms become more intuitive and efficient. MLSs that explore AI thoughtfully will be better positioned to lead on innovation and collaboration as the industry evolves.
See why more than 200 MLS organizations across the U.S. trust Paragon Connect to provide best-in-class real estate solutions to help their members work faster, smarter and stand out.
NAR NXT in New Orleans: beignets, bourbon, and a lot of opinions about the future of real estate. We’ll bring the opinions. If you’re an MLS, association or proptech company trying to make sense of where things are headed (and what it means for your 2027 plans), let’s grab some time. See link below:
The Industry Relations Podcast is now available on your favorite podcast player!
Overview
Rob and Greg break down Open Real Estate (ORE), a new initiative from eXp, Real, RE/MAX, Keller Williams, and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices to build a broker-run listing cooperative. They debate whether ORE is a national MLS or a syndication platform, whether a Q1 2027 launch is realistic, and what ORE could mean for MLSs, Compass, and government regulation of the industry.
Key Takeaways
ORE aims to prevent inventory fragmentation driven by Compass’s private listing strategy.
Greg gives ORE a one-out-of-ten chance of success but thinks MLSs and portals should help anyway.
Rob says mandatory submission plus cooperation makes ORE a national MLS, whatever it’s called.
Greg sees ORE as closer to ListHub 2.0, a data feed that works alongside MLSs.
Rob asks why ORE doesn’t just buy ListHub from Realtor.com instead of building from scratch.
Neither host believes ORE can launch by Q1 2027 with RFPs only now going out.
ORE’s early principles include submission within one business day and public or participant-only listing options.
ORE could become the industry’s new rulemaker, giving MLSs cover against Compass.
Pricing like a dollar per listing could push smaller MLSs toward consolidation.
Greg credits ORE for bringing a solution to the table instead of filing lawsuits.
Greg wonders if ORE gives Robert Reffkin a face-saving way out of his fight with MLSs.
Rob argues ORE’s real goal is removing inventory as a way for brokerages to compete for agents.
Rob warns that ORE’s consumer-protection rhetoric could invite government regulation of the MLS.
In 2004 congressional testimony, industry leaders defended the MLS as a private broker-to-broker cooperative.
