Rebecca Jensen

Chief Executive Officer, Midwest Real Estate Data

Jensen is leading the Chicago area’s multiple listing service through an industry-wide battle over who controls real estate offerings and how homes are marketed. At the same time, MLS platforms nationwide face existential pressure from antitrust litigation, rule changes and challenges to the traditional commission structure.

Jensen began working in the MLS industry in 1998 and was the CEO of Utah’s regional MLS from 2007 until joining MRED in March 2015.

Midwest Real Estate Data is the broker-owned multiple listing service covering northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. Jensen helped create the Private Listing Network shortly after taking over at MRED, a feature that allows agents to share listings with other MLS subscribers while keeping them off public platforms like Zillow. The network has become a target as Zillow seeks to enforce its listing standards requiring listings to be on public portals if they are publicly marketed elsewhere. Jensen has dug in on defending the private network. 

The Private Listing Network “allows MRED to be an impartial arbiter, a referee carefully and compassionately watching over the arena in which we’re all playing together,” Jensen said in a November message to MRED subscribers. 

Jensen holds prominent roles in other industry groups outside MRED: she’s board chair of Real Estate Standards Organization, board chair of MLS Grid and vice chair of the Broker Public Portal.

— Caleb McCullough