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A new report from Broker Resource Network, a trade group for residential real estate brokerages, suggests the National Association of Realtors’ efforts to stem off-market listings is having the opposite effect.
After analyzing data extracted from the 24 multiple listings services its members belong to – but not including Connecticut’s SmartMLS – the report concludes that NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy appears to have caused the number of off-market listings to more than double after it was introduced in May of 2020.
The report measured this apparent increase in off-market listings via the number of “zero days on market” properties, which sell within 24 hours of being listed on an MLS. The report compared the number of listings with zero days on market between May 2019 and April 2020, and between May 2020 and April 2021. In some markets around the country, the report broke out statistics by brokerage.
While several normal types of transactions, such as for-sale-by-owner, would be recorded in an MLS as having zero days on market, the report suggested a big jump in office exclusives could be a cause. Listings advertised as “coming soon” can also attract offers that are opened the day the listing hits the market. The report stopped short of assigning blame for the increase, however, and called for brokerages, MLSs and Realtor groups to collaborate on understanding the cause.
In its announcement of the research, the group declared the act of releasing a research report to the public – which it normally only makes available to members – shows how seriously it takes the issue.
“This is a very important issue for our industry,” Broker Resource Network President Kent Hanley said in a statement. “If this trend continues, we fear that it may erode the importance of the MLS, have devastating impact on fair housing, and create other business issues that would impair cooperation across our great industry.”
The Clear Cooperation Policy requires brokers to submit their listings to an MLS within one business day of marketing the property to the public, which includes everything from placing yard signs and fliers in brokerage windows to email blasts and multi-brokerage listings-sharing networks. In-office exclusives are not covered. Neither are properties whose owners specifically ask for a listing to be withheld from an MLS, nor “coming soon” announcements.
The policy was created amid rising concerns that agents who don’t market properties via MLS services are at risk of committing fair housing violations because agents’ private marketing networks are likely going to be limited by race or other, similarly protected factors.
