{"id":47931,"date":"2026-03-26T21:19:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/cmls-warns-pre-marketing-could-fragment-the-housing-market\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T21:19:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:19:42","slug":"cmls-warns-pre-marketing-could-fragment-the-housing-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/cmls-warns-pre-marketing-could-fragment-the-housing-market\/","title":{"rendered":"CMLS warns pre marketing could fragment the housing market"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Council of MLS <\/strong>(CMLS), the trade organization for multiple listing services, is pushing back against the rhetoric currently circulating the housing industry that \u201csellers benefit when their listings are not broadly exposed, that listing brokerages have a fiduciary duty to withhold facts from other brokers and their buyers, and that MLSs work against real estate professionals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a blog post<\/a> published on Wednesday, CMLS calls these ideas a \u201cfalse narrative,\u201d and pushes back against the increasing popularity of pre-marketing strategies and platforms. The trade organization is warning the housing industry that limiting listing exposure could fragment the housing market <\/a>and tilt competition in favor of larger firms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MLS keeps the housing market open, transparent and competitive. It serves both sides of the transaction. Buyers get a complete and reliable view of available homes. Sellers benefit from a market in which brokers compete in the open. Brokerages of all shapes and sizes, and their clients, get a fair opportunity to compete in a shared cooperative system with access to the same market information,\u201d the blog post states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additionally, CMLS also warned the industry that blocking data points like days on market or price drop history from display reduces transparency for buyers and makes it harder for sellers to price their homes, while also making it more challenging for smaller brokerages to compete on an equal playing field.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cComplete, timely, and accurate listing information matters. Buyers and sellers rely on price history, days on market, and status changes to make informed decisions in one of the most important financial transactions of their lives,\u201d the post states. \u201cWhen a brokerage calls those facts \u2018negative insights<\/a>,\u2019 it denies brokers and consumers access to market facts. If those facts were not important to consumers, we would not have this debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days on market and price changes vital for transparency<\/h2>\n

The post also notes that the Department of Justice<\/strong> (DOJ), in previous litigation<\/a> with the National Association of Realtors <\/strong>(NAR), highlighted days on market and price changes as important information MLSs must provide brokerages and consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe information the brokerages want hidden would not disappear. It would remain available to the largest firms. A brokerage that places a listing into \u201ccoming soon\u201d status while asking the MLS not to track days on market or price changes still has that information,\u201d the post states. \u201cSo do other large firms with the technology to track it. The result is that key information would remain available to a few large brokerages and the buyers they represent, but not to newer and smaller competitors and their clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Small brokerages are hurt the most<\/h2>\n

Due to this, CMLS argues that without access to information like this, smaller or newer entrants into the industry would struggle to compete with larger firms, hindering competition in the space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSiloing and hiding information weaken competition between brokerages and moves the market away from an open, shared system toward a more fragmented one,\u201d the post states. \u201cIf this direction persists, brokers and consumers will be required to constantly search countless venues to find available homes, and they will never be confident that they have a complete view of the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the post does not specifically call out any individual companies or organizations, it comes as listing portal firms and brokerages across the country announce partnerships to display coming soon listings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This trend began roughly a year ago when Compass<\/strong> began touting its three-phased marketing system<\/a>, which first sees a listing debut as a private exclusive listing within Compass\u2019s internal listing platform before phasing into a coming soon <\/a>and eventually an active listing on the MLS. <\/p>\n

Compass took things a step further in late February of this year, announcing a mutually exclusive partnership with Rocket Companies<\/strong> and Redfin<\/strong> to display Compass\u2019s coming soon listings<\/a> on Redfin. <\/p>\n

Then, earlier this month, Zillow<\/strong> <\/a>announced exclusive partnerships with HomeServices of America, Keller Williams, Side, United Real Estate <\/strong>and REMAX <\/strong>to pre-market their coming soon listings with Zillow Preview. Earlier this week, Zillow announced that 24 additional real estate firms <\/a>had signed on to the program, which is expected to debut next month. <\/p>\n

Homes.com<\/strong>, Realtor.com<\/strong> and ComeHome.com <\/strong>have also entered the pre-marketing game in the past weeks, each announcing a non-exclusive deal <\/a>to display eXp Realty<\/strong>\u2019s coming soon listings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With these announcements industry experts have hypothesized that this could mark the end of the MLS as we currently know it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200b\u201cThe MLS is not going to fall over tomorrow, but the era of the MLS being the dominant marketplace for the sale of homes is coming to a close,\u201d Steve Murray, the co-founder of RealTrends Consulting<\/strong>, told HousingWire last week<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t know how long it will take, but it is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some firms seem adamant about \u201cdismantling<\/a>\u201d MLS systems that do not support their demands, others continue to see value in the transparent market created by the MLS and they are calling on MLSs to adapt to the current needs and desires of brokers and consumers. Given this environment, only time will tell if the MLS will go the way of the dodo.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Council of MLS (CMLS), the trade organization for multiple listing services, is pushing back against the rhetoric currently circulating the housing industry that \u201csellers benefit when their listings are not broadly exposed, that listing brokerages have a fiduciary duty to withhold facts from other brokers and their buyers, and that MLSs work against real…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}