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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.
Links
Vendor Alley: Upstream 2.0? Not Quite.
Inman: KW, AGNT, HomeServices of America, Real REMAX fight private listing with new collaboration
BAM (Video) : REAL, eXp, Keller Williams & Berkshire Hathaway Announce Historic Team Up
Notorious POD (Video): Reaction Video – Open Real Estate
Are you an MLS Exec going to NAR NXT? Book a meeting with Greg/Giant Steps
Connect with Rob and Greg
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I put the above into AI and I got … these 4 options based on the ability for the site to WITHHOLD listings, making it just Compass competition doing the same.
Option 1: Direct & Incisive (Best for an industry debate)
“Calling it ‘Open Real Estate’ while officially codifying a ‘participant-only’ tier is the ultimate industry irony. You can’t criticize Compass for withholding inventory while simultaneously building your own multi-brokerage walled garden to do the exact same thing behind closed doors. Withholding a listing from the public market is still withholding it, no matter how many logos are in the club.”
Option 2: The Consumer & Fiduciary Angle
“If ORE allows a ‘participant-only’ view that shields listings from the open public and outside agents, it’s not solving inventory fragmentation—it’s just legitimizing an expanded private network. A listing withheld from the full market doesn’t serve the seller’s fiduciary interest; it just serves the brokerages trying to keep both sides of the transaction inside their preferred circle.”
Option 3: Short & Punchy (One-liner style)
“How can an initiative call itself ‘Open Real Estate’ when its core rules allow listings to be withheld from the public under ‘participant-only’ views? It’s not an open market—it’s just a bigger walled garden disguised as cooperation.”
Option 4: Tying in the Podcast’s “ListHub 2.0 / National MLS” Debate
“Rob hit the nail on the head: mandatory submission plus a two-tiered ‘public vs. participant-only’ system makes this a private broker-run national MLS, not syndication. Touting ‘consumer protection’ while writing rules that allow member brokers to withhold homes from the public market is an antitrust invitation waiting to happen.”