The Chicago-area’s Private Listing Network often used as a bastion for high-end real estate markets is going nationwide.
Midwest Real Estate Data, the Chicago-area’s Multiple Listing Service operator, announced Friday it is opening membership to its MLS service, including the Private Listing Network, to any state-licensed real estate agent in the country. Compass International Holdings will provide its national inventory of listings, including Private Exclusives and Coming Soon listings, to the network, the MLS said in a press release.
The move comes as brokerages, portals and MLSs compete for access to exclusive inventory and direct brokerage-to-portal deals have threatened the standard MLS model. Compass signed a deal with Rocket in February to list its Coming Soon listings directly on Redfin. Zillow followed with a pre-marketing product called Zillow Preview, and eXp Realty formed a closer link with Realtor.com, Homes.com and ComeHome.com.
MRED’s expansion is a bet that brokers outside the Midwest will want to plug into a national network of off-market listings rather than navigate a patchwork of exclusive inventory across multiple sources, and that MRED’s listing options even for public listings will appeal to agents nationwide.
MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen told The Real Deal the expansion is in response to brokers, both at Compass and other brokerages across the country, who have said they want something like the Private Listing Network as an option at their own MLS.
“MRED has been providing sellers with options and buyers with transparency through our Private Listing Network for a decade,” Jensen said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “The MLS is meant to facilitate cooperation between agents in support of their clients’ needs, not dictate marketing or business model practices.”
The partnership with Compass will bring a sizable number of Private Exclusive and Coming Soon listings from its several brands across the country into MRED’s private network, adding inventory to attract agents outside the Chicago area.
“Giving homeowners choice in marketing their listings is the right thing to do,” Compass International Holdings CEO Robert Reffkin said in a statement. “We also want to support MLSs, like MRED, that value, support, and protect their customers, who are real estate agents, from retaliation by other MLSs and portals, and ensure that agents can fulfill their fiduciary duties to their home seller and home buyer clients.”
The news follows Reffkin’s pledge last month to defend Compass agents if MLSs penalize them for marketing offerings off the MLS. In a LinkedIn post last month, Reffkin said he wasn’t advocating for one national MLS but for “a national MLS to compete with local MLSs.”
Jensen didn’t say the move was an attempt to build a national MLS under MRED, but she said MRED is offering its services to any broker that wants them in the country.
MRED laid the groundwork for the nationwide offering in March when it dropped a requirement that its participants be designated Realtors to access the MLS. The National Association of Realtors dropped its own membership mandates for accessing Realtor-affiliated MLSs starting this year, allowing local organizations to decide membership requirements.
MRED’s press release also highlighted the recent tools the MLS introduced allowing sellers to control visibility of price history, days on market and automated valuation models on public websites, saying the MLS provides sellers more options in how they market their property. Reffkin has argued those data points drag down home sale prices and has pointed to their omission as a positive for sellers in Compass’ off-market marketing strategy.
Membership in MRED won’t mean an agent needs to drop their local MLS, Jensen said. And agents will have the choice to enter listings into the Private Listing Network or the MLS’s public feed regardless of their location.
Compass will subsidize the cost of joining MRED for the first 100,000 agents affiliated with Compass or any of its subsidiary brokerages who join as full members, the press release said.
The expansion comes after MRED’s private network drew criticism from Zillow, as the home search portal has taken aim at listing networks that advertise homes outside public channels. Zillow previously argued the private network deepens discrimination in Chicago by keeping listings in majority-white neighborhoods from public view more often than in majority non-white neighborhoods.
MRED and Zillow traded barbs last year but the dispute appears to be in a stalemate, as Zillow hasn’t penalized brokers who list their offerings off market before listing them on the public portal. MRED said in its press release that it “commits to protect and safeguard agents who participate in its PLN from being banned or penalized by third party portals and IDX feed recipients.”