Clear Cooperations Stands…but does it?

Anthony Lamacchia:

Clear Cooperation stands, but wait, does it? Multiple listing options for sellers. Delayed marketing exempt listings. Woo, all right, a little bit confusing.

The other day when the Clear Cooperation news broke, I was in Washington, DC. I was on stage with Gary Acosta, founder and CEO of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, and he was asking me about CCP.

I expressed my support, which I’ve done for months on end. I walk off stage, and all of a sudden, I start getting all kinds of emails. CCP stands, all kinds of articles coming out. CCP stays, NAR kept CCP. Then I started hearing from some of the media.

I sent a statement back to two different media companies. My statement that day read– let me see here. I said, “At first glance, without yet having had the chance to take a deep dive in the new policy, it seemed that NAR did what is best for the consumer.” I have zero doubt NAR’s always trying to do what’s best for the consumer, and then realtors.

Here’s back to my statement, “As I said all along, I fully support keeping CCP in place, and I applaud NAR for doing that by standing up strong in the face of threats and a lot of noise being made by some for selfish reasons.”

Now, I said that on purpose because there is noise being made by some for selfish reasons. There are some who are lobbying threats at our industry, at realtors, at the board of directors, and things like that over the last few weeks. In my prior video, I talked about that.

Rest of my statement, “The exemption for delay on sharing on IDX seems to give sellers some leeway, which is good. Insisting on a disclosure being signed by the seller is smart to be sure sellers are fully informed.”

The reason I said that is, I am obviously a proponent of sales happening on the MLS, and the majority of sales going through MLS so that we are as certain as we possibly could be that all buyers, all sellers, and all realtors at all levels, right? New realtor, experienced realtors, everyone gets a crack at a property.

I want to make sure that the industry is on an equal playing field, and that’s why I support keeping CCP. What I was saying at the end of my statement there is I like the idea of a form.

We’ve done something like that in our company for several years. We’ve asked our agents and encouraged them to have what we call a non-MLS form or warning the seller that, “Hey, if you want to sell your property off market, be aware that it may sell for less.” It may sell for more, but we want them to be aware.

That’s something that we’ve done, so when I heard that, I said, “I like that.” For the record, I found this out when the rest of you did the other day when the news broke.

These other two options do add a level of confusion. I will tell you all that myself and our general counsel, Michael McDonagh we’ve decided that we need to debate this and we need to learn more about it over the next week or two before I’m going to come out with an actual position on it.

Today, what I thought I would do is I would at least explain what it says, maybe give a little of opinion here or there, and then get back to you. CCP, in the manner that it was out for years, which is, when a property is marketed to the public for more than 24 business hours, one business day, it then has to be listed on the MLS.

That’s been the policy since early 2020 after the voting that took place in November of ’19. That, as it stands, stands, but then they added these other two options. I mentioned it.

If you go onto the NAR website, you can see they talk about, I want to make sure I use the right wording, multiple listing options for sellers. Then they talk about a delayed marketing exempt listings. That’s where this infographic comes in. I’ve been looking at it for 10 minutes before this and I’m thinking–

Okay, let’s read it. We’re going to pull it up on the screen. Option: Office exclusive exempt listing. Neither publicly marketed nor shared on the MLS. This gives a listing broker and a seller, who really is the one we care about here, the right to say, “Hey, I am willing to sign up with you. I’m okay with you marketing my property to those in your brokerage, but I don’t want to put out on the MLS yet.”

We all know there are sellers that do that. When you’re talking a week or two delay, that’s actually pretty common. The idea and the notion for years that every seller that signs a listing agreement should immediately list within 24 hours.

In the real practical world, that is often difficult to do. That’s why I actually like one of the, I believe, eight MLSs that our company is in, which is MLS PIN, which allows you to have an MLS delay form. It allows you to have a non-MLS form and I like that leeway.

What NAR did here, remember, this is policy that’s going to go downhill to the other realtor associations, both state and local, and they’re going to be able to decide timeframes. This sets up parameters so that they know, and then they’ll have to decide on some of the details like timeframes.

I actually like being able to say, “Hey, allow a listing broker if a seller wants to–” sign up the listing, there’s preparation being done. Sometime they want rugs done. Sometime they want to do a spring cleanup and get rid of the leaves before they list. Fine, right? I’m okay with that.

Then within one business day of being marketed to the public, it gets listed in the MLS. I like that. I like that. I think that’s a good thing to add. It’s a good addition. It gives sellers some freedom.

We all know, and you can tell by the tone of all my videos, for those of you that have been watching for a long time, I am one that believes in free markets. I am one that usually supports the side of consumer choice.

When it comes to this subject of using MLS, or Mr. Refkin refers to it as– he says it’s not clear cooperation, it’s forced cooperation. I think some forced cooperation is necessary in this particular instance.

We want to make sure as practitioners, and NAR wants to make sure that everyone’s getting a fair shake. I think that that’s important to not end up like Europe or South America, and I’ve mentioned that in prior videos.

Now, pull the infographic back up, and you look at the second option. Option: Delayed marketing exempt listing. Immediately available to MLS participants and subscribers, only marketed by listing firm during delayed periods. That’s another interesting one.

Now, this one, I’ll admit, this is the one I’ve got to spend some time on. I have to go through it, and we’re going to show it to some of our sales management.

We’ll probably show it to our president’s club, say, “Hey, what do you think?” and spend a couple of weeks analyzing this before I really come out with a tough position, either way, or maybe not a tough position. I don’t know what I’ll come up with, but this one’s interesting.

An allowed period set by MLS. See that on the image? Then it says delayed marketing period must immediately submit to the MLS. This basically says you sign up a listing and you submit it to the MLS. There should be a checkbox or some choice to put it on there, but not syndicate out through IDX, through Internet Data Exchange Services, out to the masses, to the consumers, to other brokerages, et cetera.

To be clear, if it’s an MLS, other brokerages will be able to search, and they will see it. This one, I’ll tell you, I’m scratching my head a bit on. I’m thinking about it from all different angles, and also thinking about what will the plaintiff’s attorneys that like to extort our industry, where will they come down? How will they see this?

How will the DOJ come down? We’ve got a new DOJ, new administration, of course, some existing stuff. How will they come down? I think about all these things, but at the end of the day, you know what I really care about? What is best for the buyer and the seller. I know that NAR is thinking the same thing.

That one I want to spend some time on. Notice what it says in the next block. Advertisement through IDX and syndication is when the listing becomes available to the public. Fine. That one I’m going to spend more time on.

You can tell by some of the comments in the articles. It’s funny, last night, I’ll confess, I was laying in bed on an iPad, reading articles, reading a great email that Mr. McDonagh had sent to me. I was going through this in my head, “Which way am I going to come down? Am I for this? Am I against this?”

I’m certainly for the notion and the talk of CCP stands. Clearly, I’ve been clear on that. When you say, “Hey, it stands, but actually you can drive around the other way,” like, “Hey, you can’t come in the front door, but you can drive around the gate,” that’s where I’m like, “Do I like all of this?” I’m unsure.

Again, though, I will say, I like the idea of being able to market within the brokerage and not publicly sharing, which basically is the existing way of CCP. I think there’s a little more clarification here. I think it’s a little more blatant, but it’s essentially the similar policy where it says one business day and then it can go out.

If we look at some of these comments, I mentioned my comment. Damian Eales, great guy, realtor.com CEO, he said, “They needed a pat on the back right now. They’re making tough decisions.” He’s right, this is very difficult.

We have people that are very strong leaders in our industry, like Mr. Refkin. I hit him a little bit in my last video, but this guy is not a stupid guy. Very capable person, very smart, and he feels strongly.

Now I can look at a statement here. I thought Errol’s statement from Zillow was interesting. “NAR’s decision to uphold its Clear Cooperation Policy, including requiring a seller disclosure form for office exclusives and pre-marketing, reinforces what we have long known. Withholding listings off MLS and behind a velvet rope,” interesting term, Errol, “limits competition, reduces transparency and disadvantages buyers, sellers, and agents.”

He’s got some points in there, but he’s also defending Zillow’s interest, right? Zillow wants these properties to be syndicated publicly so that they have access. I thought that was interesting.

Here’s something from a friend, very capable person, someone who I would say has more international knowledge of how homes are sold than any of the rest of us here, Leo Pareja. “My biggest concern is the practice of steering sellers into believing that limited exposure is the best option, even when empirical data suggests otherwise. I support maximum transparency, education, and disclosure, always keeping our consumers’ best interests in mind,” blah, blah, blah. Great comment by Leo.

Thad Wong, another very impressive leader in the industry, “Definitely heading in the right direction,” he says. “This is a problem that NAR created, and it should be a problem that NAR solves.” Can’t say I totally agree with all that.

Just to remind everyone what I said in my video a couple weeks ago, CCP came down and was put into place because inventory of homes for sale was going down. It was getting more tempting for brokerages and agents to hold their listings and sell them in-house. That was in November of ’19.

Good thing it came into play before ’20, when inventory went to the lowest levels ever, because there would have been tremendous abuse. I like that it went in place. I’m still for keeping it, as I said at the beginning of this video. Frankly, I wish they left it alone, but I’m considering these very strongly.

RISMedia put out a good article. “Today is a big win as Clear Cooperation remains intact,” Art Carter, CEO of California Regional MLS. “Clear Cooperation is the best tool we have to ensure transparency and cooperation among brokerages.” I agree with him there.

Brian Donlon, great MLS CEO, “Today’s announcement from NAR affirms what initiative MLS, like Bright, no two home sellers are the same.” Yes, good points there.

He raises some other things in here. “We already have options, NAR is now suggesting. In fact, we have allowed subscribers for nearly two decades to market properties as their clients direct, such as the option to choose Internet No in our system,” as I said, so that’s Bright MLS, which I believe is the Mid-Atlantic region.

That’s how I feel about MLS PIN. For our Massachusetts realtors that are watching this, for Massachusetts broker owners, industry folks, make sure you are clear that our MLS is not realtor owned. When it’s not realtor owned, they can beat to their own drum. That’s why some of this reminds me of that.

Jason Harbor, “MLS shouldn’t restrict how homeowners market their homes at all, but by providing them with a longer period of unrestricted public marketing, like 30 days.” He’s hinting at it wanting to be a longer period.

“MLS has reduced their legal risks and homeowners gain more choice.” Yes, there’s some parts of this that are right. It’s just that we can’t end up in a world where people are hoarding listings. We have to remember, as I said in the last video, this partly contradicts the settlement.

I pointed that out with the plaintiff’s attorney, Ketchmark. He’s all about the settlement. He’s running around like it’s a badge of honor. A phrase he used in the debate with me, “Hey, look at the great changes I created in the industry.”

Be careful there. You create a change, you’re pushing for the idea of buyer agency agreements being used. If we go too far down this other road, we end up in a situation where buyers don’t want to sign those agreements.

Again, I will admit here on camera that I need a couple of more weeks to really think this through before I weigh in on, do I like it, do I not? At first glance, the idea of keeping CCP intact, I like.

Then adding these other two options, which it’s really one option, delayed marketing, exempt listing. Again, they all say delayed, so they’re all with the intent of getting on the MLS, which I like. I got to think about that more.

Stay tuned in to recases.com, and to Crush It In Real Estate, and my own Instagram because I do do short updates along the way. I know I did one the other morning. If you watched, you’ll notice that I didn’t have as much detail as I do today. I was in DC and it’s been a very busy week. Thank you all. I’ll be back.

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