Howard Hanna Real Estate Services is the largest family-owned-and-operated real estate brokerage in the United States with 15,000+ agents and staff in 471 offices. (Compass has 33,000+ agents and 400+ offices). Their owner feels the same way about the Clear Cooperation Policy – that it will lead to anti-trust lawsuits.
I think it is inevitable that Compass, Hanna, and other large brokerages leave the NAR/MLS and go on our own – as Hanna describes at the bottom here – and retain a national presence powered by homes.com.
An excerpt:
Hanna believes MLSs should make their own participation rules rather than adopting a nationwide policy from NAR that mandates a particular way of doing business.
“[That] makes all of us complicit in that form of business if we belong to MLS,” he said. “To me, that looks like antitrust, and that looks like we’re all having to do something if we want to participate. I think there should be individual participation rules.”
None of the MLSs who said they had to follow NAR’s rules had thus far threatened fines, according to Hanna. But MLSs across the country have instituted hefty fines, some in the thousands of dollars, for violations of the CCP.
“We won’t pay the fines,” Hanna said. “We don’t think our agents should pay the fines if a seller has choice.
“What does that lead to, if we don’t pay the fines, then, okay, they’re going to say we can’t participate in the MLS? Well, is that really what they want to do? They want to have less inventory in the MLS? Do they want to destroy the MLS?”
Hanna has previously said his company was considering leaving the MLS due to NAR’s mandatory MLS policies.
“We could still put everything on our website and say to cooperative brokers, you guys can come in, look at the homes here, and we’ll still cooperate with you,” Hanna said.
Exclusion from both the MLS and Zillow would not be a home seller’s likely choice.
Maybe not today. We’ll wait until there is more breakdown of the current system, and more disgruntled brokerages. If half of the brokerages left, I think Zillow would cut a deal to include our listings, which is ok. We don’t have as much angst with them (they didn’t cost our boss $52 million like NAR did).
I don’t know what the DOJ is waiting for – they could blow up the CCP any day now, sending us back to the previously vague environment for off-market sales.
Or how about a class-action lwsuit from the buyer side? They could roll up a bunch of injustices that have been done to them.