Your leadership traveled last week to the NAR Conference in San Francisco to learn, discuss and engage on issues that affect us locally. Thanks to President Cortney Dupont, President Elect Eric Steuernagle, MLS President Peter West and MLS Vice President Pam Roberts for taking time out of an incredibly busy real estate season to attend on your behalf! While we were all busy and learning non-stop on issues such as safety, agency, legal trends, scams, legislation, and much more, I will be breaking this segment up into sections for ease of reading:
The biggest news out of the conference: The National Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors passed MLS Statement 8.0, also known as the Clear Cooperation policy, which must go into affect no later than May 1, 2020. The new policy requires all listing brokers who are participants in a MLS must submit all of their listing to the MLS within one business day of marketing a property to the public. But, we have 2 business days to enter a listing, you say? Yes, you still do – unless and until you begin to publicly market that listing. Then, your timing shrinks to 1 day. It is for this reason that we will shore up our coming soon and delayed showing policies to ensure we are properly giving brokers the tools they need to operate in their client’s best interest. But think about it – Realtors should not have to drive around to see lawn signs or surf your facebook page to see what is being offered to the general public, when the whole basis of belonging to an MLS is for ultimate cooperation with other brokers.
We’re sure there will be a ton of questions, and we will have local listening (and talking sessions). You can also visit the MLS Clear Cooperation Proposal page at nar.realtor. On November 20th @ 3 p.m. NAR is also hosting a webinar to talk about MLS Statement 8.0 the questions and answer questions Click the link – all re invited to attend. Register now and you’ll receive a reminder before the event as well.
Two things emerged from this discussion. First, that brokers have been seeing significant market shifts in many homes being held from the market not for the seller’s sake, but for their own. And secondly, when looking at the function and form of the MLS, the need for it in your business is still critical While some might lament that Zillow has become the defacto MLS, please remember all of the data collection, technical assistance, accuracy checks, support and in-the-trenches showing and cooperation rules are done by your local MLS and fed in perfect form to all syndication sites to market it on your behalf.
