Check out Sam DeBord‘s latest on Inman News, “Decoding the broker/MLS cold war on consolidation“, its a good read and recap of some of the conversations going on right now.

Here are some good insights..

“MLSs, like brokerages, can be wildly different from one another. They don’t all have the same motivations. So it’s not surprising when conversations between brokers and MLSs often sound like they’re scrambled into cold war code.

The participants often don’t understand each another, and sometimes just refuse to state their intentions clearly. Anyone who’s been through an MLS’s executive session on consolidation knows just how much goes unsaid publicly.”

So true. And this…

“I’ve met brokers who’ve proudly told me that their 125-person board will never give up the local MLS, solely because they don’t want the brokers from across the water coming over.

Some threaten board members and MLS execs with losing their jobs if they even start a conversation with another organization about consolidation. It’s maddening, and it shouldn’t be a taboo topic at forums like these.”

I said this before, but sometimes I think “the war” is really larger brokers vs. the smaller ones. Larger brokers are fine with the the MLS, until they’re not.