Latest / Dishin' Dirt with Gary Pickren / Compass, Zillow & CoStar Are at War — And the MLS (and Your Business) Is the Prize

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Compass, Zillow & CoStar Are at War — And the MLS (and Your Business) Is the Prize · Dishin' Dirt with Gary Pickren

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Dish and Dirt with Gary Pickering, South Carolina's only podcast dedicated to the real estate agent craft.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now the host of Dish and Dirt, Gary Picker.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Greens, and welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Dish and Dirt.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your often opinionated but rarely wrong host, Gary Pickering, coming to you from the beautiful downtown Columbia, South Carolina offices of Blair Cato, Pickering, Cash Line, this, the first week of April 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Before I begin our big show this week.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the show, of course, is going to be the three portals, the MLS and the fight for control of real estate.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We do have a Bigley announcement here at Blair Cato.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that announcement is our 10th office is now set to be open on May the 1st.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We mentioned this at the Real Estate Success Summit.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today we can give you more information.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Our Blythewood office will be located right off of Killian Road.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: It will be at 1516 LA Drive Suite 201, Columbia 29203.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you come in off of I-77, you're going to turn left right there at the Chick-fil-A, and right behind the Chick-fil-A, there's two outbuildings, and we will be in the one on the right.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very excited to be in this new office servicing the Northeast agents and the Blythewood agents.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of driving downtown 30 minutes to close at some firm that simply imitates us, you can start with the original and close your Blythewood Northeast deals right there, right behind the Chick-fil-A.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go grab you a Chick-fil-A right after we uh close you, or you can run across the street to Whataburger, which is one of my personal favorites.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's talk about this week's show.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is a quiet war that is raging right now in real estate.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about it for several weeks, but there's still a lot of agents that don't even know the war exists.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if they know the war exists, they don't know that they're part of it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about real estate commissions, this isn't about brokerages, it's not about recruiting, it's about one thing and one thing only.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's who controls the consumer.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because whoever controls that essentially controls everything.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: They can then control commissions, they can then control recruiting, and they can control the marketplace.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So today what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna break down the three real estate portals.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: These are the three completely different models that are trying to reshape how real estate works in 2026 and moving forward.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are three models that are trying to control how buyers and how sellers interact with real estate.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you literally have no say in this war, how it's gonna reshape the industry, but you certainly will feel the effects of the aftermath of this war.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about three portals.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Portal one is gonna be the Compass Redfin Rocket, it's the end-to-end transaction companies portal.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: We got Portal Two, which is gonna be the Zillow and Keller Williams model.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the platform plus the lead ecosystem platform.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then portal three, which is the EXP, it's the agent distribution machine.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna layer on something a little bit bigger.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about how this relates to the collapse of the broker-to-broker compensation model here in South Carolina.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about the shift in buyer agency and even the growing tension that we're now seeing these portals create with the MLS.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you put all of this together, you're gonna start to see where this industry is actually going.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in my opinion, it ain't so good.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a pretty view.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But today, we're gonna try to do three things with these portals.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna answer the questions what they actually do, what they are wanting to do, but more importantly, why it matters to you, even if you don't work for one of these three companies.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump right in with portal number one, which is the Compass Redfin Rocket model.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: They are actually trying to solve the same problem, which is they want to own the entire transaction from start to finish.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: From an agent standpoint, Portal One, the Compass Redfin Rocket one, is fundamentally about shifting control from the MLS and into its proprietary in-house ecosystem.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that before.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about creating this real estate ecosystem that they own and control.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of immediately placing listings into the cooperative marketplace, the MLS, these platforms are increasingly trying to promote pre-marketing, private exclusives, and internal listing networks that allow them to expose properties first to their own agents, the buyers, and the platform.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: This effectively is trying to bypass or even delay the MLS getting access to these listings, giving the brokerage or platform basically a head start in trying to capture both sides of the transactions.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they will never admit that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: To them, it's all about seller uh choice.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality of it is it's about trying to capture both sides of the transaction, which does in and of itself create a lot of conflicts of interest.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: For agents, what this means is fewer open market opportunities.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It also means more pressure to operate within some company's system that will allow you access to inventory.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thus, they try to use that as the recruiting piece.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The value is no longer, however, in broad exposure, which is what sellers actually want.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's about controlled exposure.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to ask yourself, who is this good for?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is controlled exposure good for the seller or is it good for the brokerage?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answer is the brokerage, then you've got a real fiduciary problem.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where the platform now gets to decide who sees the listings, when they see it, and how the deal gets done.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Compass isn't just a brokerage.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: What it's trying to do is trying to position itself as a tech enabling operating system for agents.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we're talking CRM, we're talking market platforms, listing exposure tools, private listings, which the private listing is really the whole key here.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's controlling the access is what they're trying to do.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what Compass is trying to do is make the agent dependent on their ecosystem.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as an agent, I wouldn't want to be dependent on anybody's ecosystem because remember, as an agent, you are a small business owner.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You own your own business, you own your own branding.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what Compass is trying to do is to get rid of that and have you dependent on their ecosystem so you can never leave.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Redfin's part of this is probably the most honest version of this model.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's where they have salaried agents, lead funnels controlled by Redfin itself with a lower commission model.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Redfin says we don't need agents to build relationships, we deliver them the customers.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Rocket is the sleeper in this.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You get the mortgage first funnel, the consumer starts with financing, and then they get routed to the agents who are part of their funnel.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even care about the agent, they care about getting the loan.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Portal One is actually all about vertical integration.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: They want to control the consumer, they want to control the financing, they want to control the agent, essentially they want to control the entire transactions.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: They want the agent to become a service provider, not a relationship owner.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: That concerns me because once you become a service provider, what is your true value?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: If all you were doing is providing a simple service that anybody else can provide, why am I paying you?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you being the brand anymore.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're their fulfillment arm.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: If portal one wins, agents don't disappear, but they become basically employees of a system which they have no control over.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about portal number two.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Portal number two is the Zillow Keller Williams model.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is different.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to replace agents, they want to monetize them.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And from the agent standpoint, portal number two, which is again Zillow and Keller Williams, it doesn't bypass the MLS as much as it tries to build a powerful layer on top of it.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the effects can be very similar to Portal One.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Zillow captures consumer attention first and they route those leads to agents, while programs like Zillow Preview begins to introduce listings to the market before they're even widely available through the MLS.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of has that same appeal.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, Keller Williams is going to focus on training agents to convert and retain those clients within their own system.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the MLS still exists, but it becomes less central to where the deal originates.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of competing purely in an open marketplace, agents are going to be increasingly competing inside platform-driven ecosystems where access to consumers and now even early access to listens will be controlled.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: The agent success becomes tied not just to their skills, but to their position within these leads and platform networks.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not about you anymore.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So to break it down here, Zillow is not a real estate company.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Zillow is an attention company.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: It owns consumer traffic.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It sells leads back to agents, and now it's moving into enhanced agent models.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Zillow controls the top of the funnel.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Keller Williams built the original agent platform with training, coaching, culture, command of their tech system.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: What Keller Williams wants is the agents to build the business, but they want them to build it inside of their ecosystem.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So portal number two is essentially a platform plus dependency.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Zillow brings the eyeballs, Keller Williams builds the agents, Zillow essentially gives you the customer, Keller Williams helps you convert it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a conflict.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: If Zillow owns the consumer and Keller Williams wants the agent to own the consumer, those things can't both be true in the long term.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: What they want is the agent to succeed, but only if they stay plugged into that system.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Zillow wants you to buy leads, Keller Williams wants you to build a business, but inside the rails.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: The takeaway here is Portal 2 keeps agents in the game, but does make them dependent on either leads they don't control or systems they don't own.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's look at portal number three.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the EXP model.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is one that's probably the most disruptive.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's trying to control agent distribution.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So from an agent standpoint, Portal three, the EXP model, takes a fundamentally different approach by not attempting to bypass the MLS or to control listing access directly.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, what it's focusing on is scaling agent distribution and independence.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: EXP agents, they want them to still heavily rely on the MLS for exposure and cooperation, but the brokerage itself does not prioritize owning the consumer or restricting listings within a closed ecosystem.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, it wants to empower agents to build its own brands, generate its own leads, operate across multiple platforms, including syndicating listings broadly.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: The trade-off here is that while agents retain more control over their business and relationships, they are also fully responsible for creating those opportunities.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: There is no built-in advantage through exclusive inventory or platform-controlled leads.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Success depends on that agent's ability to compete in an open market rather than within a controlled one, such as the COMPAS-controlled market.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: What EXP does is they have internal tools and platforms, much like the EXP world or the KV Core and even some partnerships with Zenlis, but it does not operate a true closed consumer-facing portal that withholds listings from the broader market in the way that COMPAS and the others are attempting to do.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, what EXP's model is, is to distribute listings as widely as possible, MLS first, then syndication across major portals like Realtor and Home.com.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even when EXP participates in pre-marketing strategies, it's typically going to be done through a third-party distribution network, not a proprietary walled-off ecosystem designed to keep listings exclusive and in-house.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So while EXP does create internal collaboration and visibility amongst its agents, it's not fundamentally built on restricting access to inventories.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Its advantage is scaling of agents, not control of listings.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So let's break that down.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: No physical office, no rev, you have revenue sharing models, stock ownership, and a cloud-based brokerage.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: EXP doesn't care where the leads come from.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: What they care about is how many agents they have and how these agents are going to grow.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Portal three is about network effects.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: The more agents they have, the more powerful their system becomes.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: They want agents to recruit other agents.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Growth is their product.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the only model where agents actually can build in equity.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the trade-off EXP doesn't control the consumer experience, which means agents are still responsible for lead generation, branding, client relationships.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The takeaway for me is that Portal 3 bets on the agent, not the platform, to win the consumer.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: You own your own business, but it's all your responsibility to build your own business.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So how do they differ?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at it for who controls the consumer, Compass, Redfin, Rocket is a yes.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: KW and Zillow partially control it, and EXP does not.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who controls the agent?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: EXP is via the network.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: KW and Zillow is partial, where Compass, RedFIN, and Rocket is a definite yes.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: The core strategy for Compass, RedFIN and Rocket is vertical integration.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: KW and Zillow is platform plus leads, or EXP is agent distribution.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: The real question is who owns the relationship with the buyer and the seller?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Three possible outcomes here.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Portal one wins, which is the compass model, and the agents become transaction specialists, which I think is a very bad outcome.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Outcome two is the portal two wins.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Your agents survive, but it's more of a pay-to-play.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know how I feel about pay to play.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Portal three wins, which is EXP, agents own their own business, but they must build everything themselves, which is similar to what we have today.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: For me, none of these are really winning situations.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: The winning situation is everybody puts it on the MLS when they get the listing and quit this hide the ball crap.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, everything we've talked about changes once you understand this.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Broker to broker compensation is disappearing.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said this in the past in my podcast.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: When you remove compensation from the MLS, you change who the agent works for.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Buyer agents used to get paid automatically.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now they have to earn it, which means now buyer agents have to become salesmen.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: They have to sell their job.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you look at how the portals react to this, portal one removes that problem entirely because you don't have to sell your position anymore.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting it because of where you were.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Portal two, which is the KW model, it hands it to you and says, you figure it out.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Portal three, which is the EXP model, assumes that you already know how to deal with it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these problems from the elimination of broker to broker are handled differently within each of these portals.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to get to the part that ties everything here together, the MLS.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the thing I think that most people fail to understand about the MLS.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think once you understand this key concept, this now should make a lot more sense to you.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: The MLS was not built for marketing.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're driving, so you don't have to back it up, I'm gonna say that again.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: The MLS wasn't built for marketing.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: The MLS was built for cooperation and transparency.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not built for marketing, built for cooperation, transparency.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now everybody thinks that the MLS is about marketing.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is not about marketing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the purpose of the MLS.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not to help you market your property.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is built for you to be able to cooperate with other agents who bring you buyers.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's to provide transparency for the entire industry so that everybody in our industry can see the properties at exactly the same time so that we don't have fair housing problems.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is very simple.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone shares listings, everyone competes on service.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody competes based on access.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are now moving away from that model if these continue.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: We will no longer be an industry that competes on quality of service.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we're going to be based on who has access.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start limiting access, that's when you start having lots of legal problems and lots of lawsuits.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I should be able to see every house is for sale at exactly the same time.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be based on who I know and what I know.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be a good old boy network.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, aren't we moving to a good old boy network?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you know in the network that can get me access?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who can help me find this house?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what this should be about.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It should be about not who I know.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It should be about how good of service I provide.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: As the MLS has said, a cooperative marketplace works only when participants contribute to it in the same ways they benefit from it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody still wants to benefit from the MLS.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to go in there and find properties for my clients, but now we got people like Robert Refkin who don't want to contribute to it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're companies that benefited mightily from the fact that we've had an MLS.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Without the MLS over the last 30 years, can you imagine where we'd be in real estate?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't be where we are today.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's benefited from it and continues to benefit from it because when he can't sell the properties internally, what's he going to do?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to turn around and put them on the MLS.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I only want to give you the properties of the MLS when I can't sell them, but when I can sell them, I'm going to try to keep them off so I can keep both sides.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening right now is the rise of this pre-marketing, the coming soon listings, the private listings, the selective exposure.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And according to the CMLS, there's a growing false narrative that sellers benefit from keeping listings off the MLS.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the warning is pretty direct.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're giving us when you silo and you hide information weakening competition and move the market toward fragmentation, that is where we're going to start seeing the Department of Justice walking in.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're doing now.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: We are trying to silo information.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to hide information in these office exclusives so that I can get both sides of the transaction, thus weakening my competition.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're moving to a market that is completely fragmenting itself.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not about transparency.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: At the exact same time, the Realtors Association got hit for a$1.5 billion verdict over these pretty much these same issues.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: These dumbasses in our industry think if we start going away from transparency and siloing information and making it more difficult for consumers, that we're not going to have problems.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they're crazy.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about one here in a minute, the appraisal issue that I didn't even think about until Craig Summerall mentioned it last week on our podcast.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let me break this down a little bit for it for you.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Portal One, which is the Compass one, is the most aggressive and challenging this MLS model.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Compass Redfin and Rocket have already partnered to display pre-MLS listings.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is intentional because if you can show listings before they ever hit the MLS, you can control the consumer before the rest of the market even sees the property.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's a direct shift away from cooperation.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's all about control.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you all to be aware of two things.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, Gary is brand agnostic.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't give a damn about your brands.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Your brand is not your brokerage.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: You are your own brand.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're your own company.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care about your brokerage.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think you could be successful at regardless of which brokerage you're at.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this to be a fact because top agents change brokerages all the time, and their business doesn't go to crap when they change brokerages.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: You are your brand.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody owns you.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's point number one.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Point number two is I will always call you out when your brokerage does dumb shit.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is dumb shit.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Point number three, I'm not advocating for the MLS.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not an it's not that I'm an MLS fan, but what I am a fan of is everybody having equal opportunity and equal access to all different properties.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And no one should be able to control that.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, what we are seeing is a shift at a very same time where we are facing legal scrutiny and judicial scrutiny like we've never experienced before.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let me move over to portal number two, the Zillow preview.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Following companies, by the way, have just joined Keller Williams, Remax, Home Services of America, and United Real Estate in partnering with Zilla.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: They added 28 brokerages last week.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the ones that you may recognize are Ingalls and Vulkers, leading real estate companies of the world, Sir Hant, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Palm Paradise Real Estate Group, which I believe is now hitting it, moving into South Carolina, Levy Rogers Real Estate, Stephen Cooley Real Estate, our good friend up in Rock Hill, and a lot of others.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Zillow last week announced that brokerages could pre-market listings while complying with local listing service rules and dictate how long a listing can remain in coming soon status before going active.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me tell you this point number four, be careful.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of MLSs in South Carolina do not have coming soons.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: They do not have pre-marketing.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say, like I said last week, it ain't coming soon.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's already gotten there.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because once that property is out on the market one day and you're marketing one day, it's not coming soon.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's already out because somebody can see it and somebody can make an offer on it.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're playing with fire when you're marketing stuff is coming soon that's literally out on the market.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to take a big stretch of the imagination to see that some consumer is going to file a grievance against you saying that you're marketing an advertising property coming soon that is on the market.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is already out there.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're playing semantics with words we don't need to be playing semantics with.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, what you're going to find is that MLS is like the CMLS here in Columbia do not allow coming soons.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Once you start marketing, you've got to market to everybody and you can't limit the market.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be in the MLS.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be very careful whether you're part of portal number one, partal portal number two, portal number three, or not a portal at all as to whether you're following your local MLS rules.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, the MLS can fine you if you don't follow the rules.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you continue to not find follow their rules, they can limit your access in the MLS.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: You need to understand that's a big problem.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Phillow says that over 800 other brokerages have signaled an interest in joining their previews.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a big shift.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's not just testing, but let's talk about that for one second.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: If 800 brokerages joined up with Zillow on this coming soon, this preview listing, how is that any different than the MLS?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we only going to Zillow and going to 800 brokerages instead of just all of the brokerages?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, where is the sense in any of this at some point?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to go and say, I don't want to put it on the MLS.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to limit it and test the market.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: But yet I put it on Zillow where 800 brokerages see it, where every consumer in the world can see it, but yet I won't put it on the MLS.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the sense in that?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm willing to put it on Zillow, the number one platform in the world where more people go than all the other platforms combined in the top 10, and I'm willing to have 800 other brokerages being this exclusive membership with me and doing this, why can't I just put the damn thing on the MLS?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: What's the difference?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand what y'all are doing.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: This makes no sense.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody can explain why any of this makes any sense.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Portal 2 here, this Zillow one, is taking a different approach.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're not abandoning the MLS.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to layer on top of it.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And their preview program is kind of a perfect example of that.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Agents can test pricing during preview stage and decide whether days on market will be accrued for listing depending on how the MLS rules work.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And some MLSs, some MLSs allow agents to market a listing is coming soon for upwards of 30 days.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm cautioning you here in South Carolina about that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, what is this testing pricing nonsense?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Who have you ever represented that says, I want you to list my property, but really I don't want you to list it.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to test the pricing for a little bit, and then we can decide what we're going to do.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how it works.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: The day you take a listing, your client wants to own Zillow within an hour.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And How is testing pricing to a select agent group really testing pricing?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Am I not testing pricing by putting it in front of 40,000 agents instead of putting it in front of 40?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which one is really setting the price?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: 40 or 40,000?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's 40,000.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, here, y'all better be very, very careful on this days of market stuff.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: The day it hits the market is a day on the market.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you're lying by saying, well, we pre-marketed it for 30 days on Zillow, and then I put it on the MLS, and then it started accruing days in market.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know what also is days on market?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: The days that you had it on the market.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: The days that you took the listing, the day you got your listing agreement signed, and the day you put it out there to the public is a day on the market.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're going to have a very, very difficult time arguing that before the real estate commission saying, well, it wasn't a day on the market because it was on the MLS.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just look at this scenario where your buyer buys a piece of property and they are led to believe that it's been on the market for two days.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality of it is it's been on the market for 92 days because it set 90 days on an preview website.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think somebody's going to get a grievance filed against them for dishonesty?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And see, 40-57710 makes that a pretty much of a slam dunk case, right?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because it says you may not act dishonest.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty dishonest.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you market it for 90 days and then you put it on the MLS and claim, oh, it's only been on the market for a day when the fact it's been on the market for 91 days, that's very dishonest.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's a very big stretch to imagine that you're going to get sued over that, uh, or at least a grievance.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Play dumb games, win dumb prizes.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But Zillow is trying to position itself as a place where consumers go before the MLS even matters.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And their COE CEO even said this brokerages and their agents want an early marketing option that's public, transparent, and easy for consumers to find, not hidden behind a private gate.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a slight slap there at compass.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But do you see who is not mentioned at all in the CEO's statement?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Consumers.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It says brokerages and their agents won't.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: How about their clients?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: How about the sellers?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because not one time has anybody said that sellers are pushing for early marketing, that they want their properties to be held off the market for 30, 60, 90 days instead of going directly to sell the house.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I sell my house, I would really like it to sit for 30, 60, or 90 days on a Zillow page before you market and try to actually sell it.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's how it always works, right?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, every one of your sellers wants you to sell the house the next day.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And after about five or 10 days, they want to know why you haven't sold their house.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that they don't even talk about the consumer, the client, the seller, and the statement tells me everything you need to hear.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Portal three, which is the EXP one.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It syndicates everywhere.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't want to control portals, but it is going to help accelerate this fragmentation.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the tension.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: To see everything, consumers now are going to have to check Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Home.com, all the various websites for each one of these brokerages, which is exactly what M and News continues to point out.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: We may be moving toward a world where buyers have to check multiple portals just to see what's available.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's your big risk.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: As data fragments, it breaks pricing, and that's where appraisals are weakening.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't have information in the MLS, how is your appraisal going to be legitimate?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: How can it then go and compare other properties that have sold?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: If properties are being sold on these private portals and they never get to the MLS, where is our information going to come from?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's where our transparency disappears.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what happens at that point?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have a breakdown of our entire system.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: The entire system starts splintering and breaks.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: PXP is trying to do something a little bit different.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're not trying to own the portal, they're trying to syndicate it everywhere.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they have partnered with realtor.com, homes.com, come home to distribute their pre-market listings.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of controlling one destination, they're trying to spread their listings across all of them.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: But Portal 3 doesn't break down the MLS directly, but it also does contribute to that fragmentation.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Our big risk here is the fragmentation.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because once we start fragmenting, it's not just about inconvenience, it's about a system that has problems.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pricing is going to become less reliable, appraisals are going to be harder to be gotten, buyers aren't going to see the full market, smaller brokerages are going to lose access.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Minorities are going to lose access unless they work with bigger companies.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where this whole transaction, the whole process starts to erode.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: That happens when these problems start to happen.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's when everybody pays attention.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when we start seeing the growing concern that it will trigger the Department of Injustice scrutiny.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: The MLS was built to prevent information hoarding.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was built to prevent market manipulation.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was built to prevent unequal access.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But now we have information being controlled.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have unequal access, and we have market fragmentation.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're moving back to a world where listings are selectively shared, data is inconsistent, and access depends on which platform you go with.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if listing data becomes inconsistent, the entire system, from pricing to lending, starts to break down and help us if the Department of Injustice gets involved.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point, they're going to have no choice but to get involved as consumers are getting screwed.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: What this means for agents, it's not about choosing a brokerage, it's about choosing a model now.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every agent has to ask before you align yourself with any of these portals, where do my leads come from?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: If I leave, what do I lose?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: What do I lose access to?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And am I buying a business?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Am I building a business, or am I simply renting a business?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, this isn't about coming soon listings.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's about one question.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have one marketplace or are we going to have multiple marketplaces?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's pull this all together.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: For decades, the MLS created a system where information was shared, compensation was predictable, and cooperation was required.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: That system made real estate work.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: But now compensation is no longer guaranteed thanks to Citzor.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Buyer agency has to be sold, thanks to Citzor, and listings are moving before the MLS even sees them, thanks to RefCant.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's a bad thing.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, we have three portals: one trying to control the transaction, one that's trying to control the consumer, and one that's trying to build an army of agents.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're all asking the same question: who is going to own these relationships?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you control that, you don't need the MLS the same way, and that's the shift, and that isn't about commissions.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's about control of the marketplace.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do we stay in a system where everyone sees everything, or do we move one where access is controlled?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because those two things are different futures.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the portals aren't waiting.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're building their portals and they're building them now.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it may not be three portals at the end of the day.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: It could be five or six.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: The question is: are you building yours?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you working inside of theirs?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when will the department of Department of Justice decide they're tired of all of this and it all comes crashing down?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a look at the three different types of portals.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: What could happen in each of the portals, what they're all trying to do?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see where it goes from here as we continue to layer upon layer of this interesting story.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's all the time we have for our podcast today.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope everybody enjoyed it and got a lot out of it.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you like us, please share us.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell other real estate agents all about dish and dirt.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: See you here again next week.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hope everybody has a safe and wonderful Easter season, and we will see you back after Easter.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.