A well capitalized brokerage underwriting a single MLS’s national footprint challenges the geographic MLS model that has organized this industry for a century. Every regional MLS should be discussing what that means for its market, its Participants and Subscribers, and its future.
That broker responsibility formula is the pressure point, and it is about to be tested by the largest brokerage in the country. If a company with tens of thousands of agents concludes that it is paying association dues for licensees who have chosen not to be members, and can point to a $20 alternative it already funds, the conversation with local leadership changes character quickly. The association is no longer selling a benefit. It is defending an invoice.
Industry Crossroads™ is built on the belief that the residential real estate industry benefits when informed professionals are willing to think critically, challenge assumptions, and engage respectfully with competing idea. Our goal is not simply to report events, but to elevate the conversation.
That explains why brokerages want greater control before MLS entry, why portals insist on broad consumer access, and why MLSs find themselves caught in the middle.
As the CEO of the San Diego MLS, Saul was quick to respond with the fact that MLSs should be looking for alternative ways to showcase the value of the MLS. He explores the concept of flipping the current subscription-based business model and finding opportunities to monetize the data and bring benefits back to the providers of the data.
In practice, it’s hard to reason about the “purpose” of a product as broad as ChatGPT, or the “purpose” of the entire internet. A better framing is: do the market harms from ChatGPT come from it producing substitutes that compete with the originals? Or is it an indirect effect, like a book critic review could have on a book?
After more than 15 years of visionary leadership, Merri Jo Cowen, CEO of Stellar MLS, announced she will step down from her role in Q1 2026.
The mid-1990s marked a monumental turning point with the conceptualization of putting real estate listings on the “worldwide web.” Saul Klein, acting as a consultant for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), was a central figure in this ambitious endeavor.
If as an industry, we took the same time and effort we dedicate to debating Clear Cooperation and instead directed it at influencing lawmakers to solve the genuine problem of housing supply – the communities we serve would be immeasurably better off – and so would we. It is time we shift the conversation – and fix what’s actually broken.
The Compass v. NWMLS lawsuit is a pivotal moment in the real estate industry’s evolution, pitting a self-proclaimed disruptor against a powerful, broker-owned MLS. Compass’s allegations of monopoly power, anti-competitive rules, suppressed innovation, and consumer harm strike at the heart of how real estate markets operate.
Together they crystallize the central question facing the industry: should a residential listing belong first to the open MLS marketplace, or first to the brokerage that signed the seller? The answer will reshape how listings flow, where consumers find homes, which businesses capture the revenue, and what the Multiple Listing Service exists to do
Phoenix REALTORS® stated that it has eliminated its “MLS Choice” membership option but will continue to offer non-REALTORS® access to ARMLS as it has done since 1996. In addition, Phoenix REALTORS® will provide certain products and services to non-REALTOR® licensees who purchase non-member MLS Access.
On June 15, 2026, MLex reported that Stanley Woodward, the Associate Attorney General, has been placed in charge of running the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The step matters because of who Woodward is and how he reached it. It matters more because the division he now controls has spent the better part of a decade as the principal federal antitrust threat to organized real estate.
