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The National Association of Realtors’ Clear Cooperation Policy is the most hotly debated rule in the real estate industry right now, but it is nowhere to be seen at the trade group’s largest annual event.
At the end of a committee meeting of multiple listing service executives at NAR NXT in Boston Saturday, a staffer read out a question from the audience: “Why aren’t we talking about Clear Cooperation? Everybody’s talking about Clear Cooperation, but we’re not talking about it.”
The query highlighted a conspicuous omission from the event’s agenda. The CCP, which requires listing brokers to list properties in Realtor-affiliated MLSs within one business day of publicly marketing them, burst into the limelight following rule changes due to NAR’s settlement of multiple antitrust lawsuits.
Passionate detractors and backers of the pocket listing rule have been duking out its pros and cons for months. NAR’s MLS Technology and Emerging Issues Advisory Board met twice before the conference to consider changes to the rule before ultimately deciding not to recommend any changes and handing the issue over to the eight-member NAR Leadership Team.
Rodney Gansho
Asked why the Clear Cooperation Policy was not up for discussion at NAR NXT, NAR’s director of engagement, Rodney Gansho, told Inman in an interview, “We’re not moving forward with a recommendation, so what would be the point of that?”
Gansho said NAR already had “an avenue to gain feedback” and had been meeting with “various stakeholders.” Asked what that avenue was, Gansho said anyone with feedback could reach out to him or Jason Sanchez, NAR’s director of MLS engagement.
In response to the audience question about why the CCP was not being discussed on Saturday, Gansho told attendees of NAR’s Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee that NAR was being “very thoughtful” in how it was approaching the policy. He pointed to a letter from the Council of MLSs (CMLS) warning NAR against rushing into a decision and said the trade group was following that advice.
“If you have feedback that you want to be part of that information, please reach out to Jason, reach out to myself,” Gansho told the crowd.
“We’d love to get that information from you. I suspect that sometime in the future, we’re likely to be talking more about that and debating a recommendation or something along those lines as to how we move forward.”
In an emailed statement, a NAR spokesperson told Inman,”CCP is not on the agenda for NXT because the MLS Technology and Emerging Issues Advisory Board opted not to make a recommendation about CCP at its last meeting and turned feedback it received to the NAR Leadership Team.
“That feedback, in addition to other input we have received following the last meeting, is in evaluation as NAR considers next steps.”
Asked whether that meant the CCP is not on the agenda because NAR has decided it has enough feedback to evaluate the policy and make a decision, the spokesperson said, “[W]e continue to gather feedback through many channels on a rolling basis.”
The spokesperson directed Inman to a Realtor Magazine post that refers to NAR evaluating the CCP “with particular sensitivity.”
NAR’s annual and midyear conferences feature several meetings whose purpose is to have MLS leaders and those involved with MLS policy share ideas and communicate with each other about any policy concerns. These include MLS breakout groups, the MLS Association Executives Session, the MLS Forum and the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee. At this NAR NXT, the trade group also hosted a “The Future of the MLS” panel. The CCP was not discussed at any of them.
Dionna Hall, CEO of BeachesMLS, chair of CMLS, and a member of NAR’s MLS Technology & Emerging Issues Advisory Board, confirmed to Inman in an interview that the CCP was not discussed during the MLS breakout groups, which she moderated.
Dionna Hall
“There was some pre-approved questions ahead of time that we agreed to with NAR and so we stuck to those questions instead of discussing CCP,” Hall said.
Hall noted that NAR’s legal team had put some limitations on the discussions “just making sure that we were staying within antitrust compliance.
“Obviously there’s a lot of people in that room that maybe are not up to speed as much about the things that we shouldn’t be talking about like set commissions and what have you,” Hall said.
“So we just all have to really educate ourselves when we’re moderators in there to make sure that if anybody does talk about that that we shut down that conversation quickly. Just trying to make sure we’re operating on the up-and-up.”
Moderators were trying to keep people away from antitrust violations, Hall clarified.
“What I’m talking about is violating antitrust law by having certain discussions in a room full of people,” she said.
Hall said she wasn’t sure why CCP specifically was not being addressed at the conference.
As a member of the advisory board, she mentioned that there had been extensive discussions about the policy and as an MLS CEO, she had reached out to brokers in her market to gather their input on potential changes to the policy to make it more flexible.
When asked about any updates from the NAR Leadership Team regarding policy deliberations, Hall stated that there were none. She mentioned that they seemed to be at a standstill while working through surrounding issues.
NAR has a history of controversy surrounding MLS policies, and typically, when considering changes to an MLS policy, there would be formal discussions at conferences, even if no specific policy changes were up for a vote at that time.
In 2023, for the first time in recent memory, NAR’s Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee did not propose any MLS policy changes for a vote by the board of directors. This may have been influenced by ongoing antitrust litigation, such as the Sitzer | Burnett case, which found NAR conspired with major real estate franchisors to inflate broker commissions.
At a recent MLIP Committee meeting, the lack of discussion about the CCP was noted. When asked about it, committee chair Johnny Mowad stated it was not the focus of the meeting and deferred further questions to NAR representatives.
NAR’s spokesperson reiterated that they are carefully evaluating the CCP in light of feedback from members, stakeholders, and ongoing litigation and investigations. NAR is working with outside experts to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of its current policies.
Despite the decision not to include CCP on the agenda at NAR NXT, NAR stated it was not related to legal concerns. They declined to provide specific details about the outside experts involved or the firm retained for the assessment.
Overall, NAR continues to review the CCP and other policies to ensure decisions are made in the best interest of members and consumers. Feedback is being gathered from various sources, and the Leadership Team is actively evaluating the policy with the assistance of outside experts. sentence:
The cat chased the mouse around the house.
Rewritten sentence: The mouse was chased around the house by the cat.