Robert Reffkin on Wednesday said clear cooperation attaches “negative insights” to listings, and predicted the polarizing anti-pocket listing rule is ultimately doomed.
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Compass CEO Robert Reffkin on Wednesday argued that the National Association of Realtors’ “clear cooperation policy” is “anti-homeowner” and, ultimately, doomed to disappear.
Reffkin made the comments during his company’s Q2 earnings call with investors, where he talked about plans to make his company’s website a destination for consumers — one that has “more inventory than third-party websites.” The comment suggests Compass may be itching to more directly enter the so-called portal wars and, also, that it believes it can include listings on its site that don’t appear elsewhere.
Such a plan could potentially run into obstacles in the form or NAR’s clear cooperation policy. The policy rolled out in 2019 and requires brokers to submit listings to their local multiple listing service within 24 hours of marketing them. The goal of the policy was to crack down on pocket listings, and the potential for discrimination when certain listings are only visible to some agents and their clients.
Robert Reffkin
Reffkin, however, argued Wednesday that clear cooperation does not benefit consumers.
“I believe clear cooperation is anti-homeowner,” Reffkin said.
He went on to assert that forcing listings into the MLS means that “negative insights” such as days on market or price drops get attached to those listings. Such negative insights can serve as a “killer of value,” Reffkin added, meaning consumers have good reason to want their listings to not appear on the MLS. Reffkin also pointed out that in some other countries such as Australia, data points such as days on market are not displayed on listings.
Conversely, Reffkin said that “private exclusives” — in other words, listings that are marketed outside of an MLS — let homeowners “test the market” without getting dinged.
“You can test the market without having the negative insights on them,” Reffkin said. “Clear cooperation, the problem with it is it’s forcing homeowners into negative insights.”
As a result, Reffkin believes clear cooperation and the “forcing mechanism” it created that pushes all listings onto the MLS will ultimately end. He additionally pointed to parts of California and Massachusetts where MLSs are not affiliated with NAR and therefore not bound by clear cooperation, adding that in such places “things work just fine.”
In a statement to Inman later Wednesday, Reffkin also noted that “the Department of Justice has reopened their investigation into Clear Cooperation and that the Top Agent Network (TAN) revived their lawsuits, stating clear cooperation breaks antitrust law.”
The lawsuit Reffkin was referencing began in 2020 and was filed by TAN against NAR. The suit challenged clear cooperation on antitrust grounds, but a federal district court dismissed it in August 2021. However, an appeals court revived the case last year.
The Justice Department inquiry has also been the subject of legal wrangling between regulators and NAR. In April, an appeals court ruled that the DOJ can reopen the investigation, despite NAR’s objections.
In any case, Reffkin ultimately concluded his comments on the topic Wednesday by saying that “the vast majority of inventory will end up coming to a centralized place.” However, that process in the future may not happen as near-instantaneously as it does today, he said.
“There are reasons,” he added, “for homeowners to want their listing to not instantly go public or in the MLS.”
Update: This story was updated after publication with addition comments from Reffkin, and with background on cases Reffkin mentioned.
