How MLSs are rethinking their future after NAR rule changes

"We are coming out of a world where the pillars of the MLS were compensation and cooperation, and one of those pillars is gone and never coming back, Ed Zorn, the general counsel and vice president of California Regional MLS (CRMLS), said during a session at the Council of MLSs' (CMLS) Open House conference in September. Now we have to decide if we are able to build the MLS on what is now, just a foundation of cooperation."

"For me, chocolate covered raisins are the perfect analogy, Jerry Legrand, the chief technology officer at Greater Louisville Association of Realtors/APEX MLS, said during another session at Open House. You have chocolate, which is the MLS and everyone loves it, and then you have raisins, which are the associations, which some people like and see value in and others don't. But then you combine them into an unholy abomination. The sum of the parts, the MLS and the association, is less to me than the parts by themselves."

MLSs faced a fundamental shift after offers of cooperative compensation were removed following the NAR commission lawsuit settlement, forcing organizations to reassess their core purpose. One traditional MLS pillar—compensation—disappeared, leaving cooperation as the remaining foundation and prompting debates about how to rebuild MLS structures. Many MLSs evaluated their value propositions, with some, such as Bright MLS, expanding into technology services while others remained tied to state or local Realtor associations. Realtor association-owned MLSs considered separation and opened access to non-Realtor members as an initial step. Analogs like the chocolate-covered-raisins metaphor captured tensions between MLSs and associations and mixed member perceptions.

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