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Compass CEO Robert Reffkin is on a mission to get the National Association of Realtors to repeal the Clear Cooperation Policy, and on Friday he called out a well-known industry boogeyman: Zillow.

In a session called “The Future of the MLS” at NAR’s annual conference, NAR NXT, no one mentioned the pocket list rule directly, but the now months-long debate over whether it should be changed continued throughout the hour-long conversation hang. .

Topics covered by the panelists ranged from artificial intelligence to industry regulations and the identity of the MLS.

“I think if you were to build an MLS today… I think it would be national,” Reffkin said.

“There wouldn’t be 548. At some point there will be a national MLS.”

“My opinion is that Zillow is going to become the MLS,” Reffkin later added. “It’s only a matter of time.”

This comment caused a lot of talk in the packed room.

Reffkin then congratulated Zillow on its latest earnings report, noting that the company is now worth $17 billion, exponentially more than brokerage giant Anywhere.

“That’s what’s happened to our industry under this watch,” Reffkin said.

According to Reffkin, it will be Zillow that wins in the future.

He complimented Zillow’s “brilliant” strategy and placed the company’s success at the feet of the organized real estate industry.

“They could, thanks to your rules, become real estate agents in any state, without having an office space, without having agents,” he said.

“They were able to access all the listings and then charge referral fees for all the listings. It’s a great business model and those are the rules you created, so those are the winner.”

Errol Samuelson

Fellow panelist Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s Chief Industry Development Officer, did not respond to Reffkin’s comments about Zillow.

Fears about Zillow and that the publicly traded tech giant will one day take over the industry have been pervasive among many brokers and brokers since the company’s founding. By referring to this threat, Reffkin seems to want to take a new course in his fight against NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy.

The policy requires brokers to submit listings to multiple broker-affiliated brokerage services within one business day of going public.

Critics of the CCP, including Reffkin, argue that it limits seller choice and could violate antitrust laws. The rule’s proponents, including Zillow, warn that repealing the rule could lead to a more fragmented real estate market where major brokers don’t share their listings with other brokers in an effort to keep them in-house and consumers don’t have access to a comprehensive range lists.

“The reason the MLS is so important at its core is that it is an unbiased, open, two-sided marketplace where there is equal access to information,” Samuelson said early in the session, before Reffkin’s comments on Zillow.

“There is a fair, level playing field. Everyone has the same ability to see the same data. I think MLS is one of the things that makes the real estate market in the United States so vibrant, so efficient and so strong.

“If it didn’t exist, we would feel obliged to invent it.”

Throughout the session, Reffkin criticized NAR’s role as national rule maker.

“I believe that rules should be set by the government and elected officials,” Reffkin said.

“As trade groups, we need to advocate for rules. I believe that data should always be accurate and real, but in terms of rules I would not create national rules that would ever force anyone to do anything (anyone) be a buyer or a seller.”

He pointed to rules that prohibit listing agents from telling consumers to contact them in listing descriptions.

“I’m a real estate agent and I want people to know this is my listing. My homeowner wants people to know this is my listing,” he said.

“I don’t think we’re treating the homeowners as customers,” he added.

“We only exist as MLSs because we have listings. If you had no listings, you cannot exist and there is no competition for the homeowner. I think the competition for homeowners will ultimately give them a better experience and more options.”

Art Carter

Art Carter, CEO of California Regional MLS, said there were 24,000 agents in his market and there was “a lot of competition giving people different options for their services.”

But he agreed with Reffkin on the listing award, saying that MLSs “should defend the listing agent on the listing” and that CRMLS did so.

“You deserve those props in front of the consumer,” Carter said.

Reffkin went on to say that he felt the industry talked a lot about buyers, but not enough about sellers, and predicted there would be more balance in the future. As an example, he pointed to two common market metrics: days on market and history of price declines.

“I believe days on market are the value killer,” Reffkin said.

“I believe that the history of price declines is the killer of value. No homeowner wants that.

“If buyers deserve to know days of marketing, sellers deserve to know how long a buyer searched on the MLS, or how many times they made an offer that was rejected,” he added.

Brian Donnellan

Moderator Brian Donnellan, CEO of Bright MLS, asked what the value of the agent is in that scenario.

“I think the more flexibility there is to the market, the more the best brokers with the most experience will rise,” Reffkin said.

Samuelson disagreed. “The best agents win because of their expertise, their experience and their skills, not because of information asymmetry,” he said.

“I think the information should be equally available, and the officers should compete based on their skills,” he added. The crowd applauded.

Carter agreed. “Days on market are a fact of life when marketing real estate,” he said.

“At what level do you hide information from a buyer? What is the clear line in that?

“The fact that there is flooding on the property is also to the disadvantage of the seller. I don’t think they want to hide that piece of information. The number of lawsuits is increasing, and the fact that we may have discussed hiding information from a buyer concerns me.”

Reffkin responded that there was a difference between something that affects the home being purchased and a statistic such as the number of days the home is on the market.

“Days on market are a negotiating point,” Reffkin said.

Reffkin pointed to Australia, where sellers have not posted negative metrics next to their listings on the most popular listing site and where listing agent attribution is prominent.

But Samuelson noted that in Australia, more than 75 percent of buyers do not have their own independent representation.

“I think this is a dangerous and substandard experience,” he said, prompting applause from those in attendance.

He also noted that agents in Australia don’t buy listings, they buy home sellers.

“If we were in Australia, they’d pay me $2,500 to get an ad on our website,” Samuelson said.

“So if you’re doing apples to apples, Australia versus the United States, it’s cheaper to transact in the United States than Australia because we have a very efficient market.”

Samuelson noted that the United States and Canada are the only two countries in the world where selling real estate through the MLS is the norm.

“We have to protect this beautiful thing that we have,” he said. “We are very lucky to have that system. We should protect it with both arms around it.’ The audience clapped.

In response, Reffkin said: “I really believe in a strong MLS. Cleaning the data in New York City, where the MLS data is not strong… it costs us more money than every other MLS combined.

“I think mandatory filing is a good thing. I think MLSs are the source of truth, a good thing. I think there is a difference between mandatory submissions and mandatory marketing.”

As for policy, Carter noted there is no consensus among brokers.

“My top three brokers all have three different opinions on policy,” Carter said. “So which one should I follow? Speaking of the real estate community and what they want, that doesn’t exist because they all want very different things.”

Samuelson suggested that brokers be given a choice of which MLS they belong to, by requiring every MLS in a state to share data with every other MLS in that state.

“You wouldn’t choose an MLS simply because they had some sort of exclusive access to certain listings,” Samuelson said. “You would choose an MLS based on the cost, the services provided and the level of customer service. I think it will create a more robust market.”

According to Carter, the industry needs to double down on collaboration between brokers.

“We are no longer just a database of listings,” he said of MLSs. “As we go forward, as we grow and things come together, you’re going to see more of that and more reliance on the broker community to work with each other to provide some of those data points that they need for consumers.”

The value of the MLS to consumers in the future is a “transparent marketplace,” Carter added.

“They don’t want to go to 15 different websites to see what available listings are out there,” he said.

Kymber Lovett-Menkiti

Kymber Lovett-Menkiti, president of Keller Williams Capital Properties, highlighted a central tension during the session: “If it’s competitive at the broker level but does a disservice to the consumer, is that really in our best interest?”

Email Andrea V. Brambila.

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