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Congress vs. Compass: Is Reffkin's Private Listing Strategy About to Change Real Estate Forever? · Dishin' Dirt with Gary Pickren

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Let me start by getting this out of the way right up front.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: I told you so.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: I told you that the federal government was not going to sit by and watch what was happening in real estate and not get involved.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: And for over a year, I've been telling you that the biggest battle in real estate has nothing to do with your commissions.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: It isn't about buyer agency or artificial intelligence.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: It's not about Zillow.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: It's not even really about the MLS.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: The biggest battle in real estate today is about one simple question: who controls the inventory?
0:29
SPEAKER_01: And now, because of Robert Refkin, the federal government, as I told you they would, wants to get involved because the government knows whoever controls the inventory controls everything else.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: They control the consumer, they control the mortgage, they control the title insurance, they control the title company, the advertising, the data.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: They control the data.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, they will control the future of the real estate industry.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: And with that comes all kinds of federal and state legal issues, such as fair housing, antitrust guidelines, lending guidelines, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and everything else.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Because whether you like the government being involved in real estate or not, when loans are backed by government agencies, Congress is always going to pay attention.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: And all of the idiots out there pushing the private exclusives as being consumer choice are all ignoring all the federal laws and all the state laws that are involved in real estate, and they continue to gaslight you by saying this is about seller choice.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: As if the seller has a choice to market property any way they want, as if they have a choice to ignore federal fair housing laws or state housing laws or state licensing regulations.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: I think all that begs to differ.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: But for months we have sat around and watched Refkin expand this private exclusive program.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: We've seen Zillow take a stand against listings that bypassed MLS, and we've watched MLS groups split into different camps.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: We've seen brokerages choose inside.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: We've watched lawsuits being filed, policy statements being issued, industry literature debating each other on stage whether the seller has a right to market the property privately or not.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: And many people have simply dismissed it as nothing more than another industry food fight.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: But on July 22nd, 2026, something very monumental happened that changed.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: The fight left the real estate industry and entered the halls of Congress.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, guy named Jim Jordan, sent letters to both COMPAS CEO Robert Refkin and the MRED, the Midwest Real Estate Data MLS, requesting information about their agreement involving private listings.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about that for a second.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Congress, not the National Association of Realtors, not Zillow, not the MLS, not a real estate commission, the United States Congress.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: And when Congress starts asking questions about housing and how homes are being marketed, every real estate professional better start paying attention.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: Now let me be clear, these letters are not accusations of wrongdoing.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: They're simply requests for information.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Congress has reached no conclusions allegedly yet.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: But in my opinion, rarely does Congress ask a question that they haven't already started forming opinions on.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: COMPASS has not been found to have violated any law, and MRED has not been accused of any misconduct.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: But what this does mean is that congressional oversight matters because it tells you where the policymakers believe there may be issues worthy of investigating.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: And when the House Judiciary Committee starts asking questions about competition, transparency, consumer choice, and housing affordability, it certainly means this discussion has become a much larger issue than the industry policy debate that everybody wants you to think this is.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Today we're going to unpack all of what these letters say, why they matter, and perhaps more importantly, what Congress may really be asking in these hearings.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think this is ultimately about private listings.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: It's about something much bigger.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: It's about who gets to control access to the American housing market.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: We're going to cover this and a whole lot more today on Dish and Dirt.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: This is Dish and Dirt with Gary Pickering, South Carolina's only podcast dedicated to the real estate agent craft.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: And now the host of Dish and Dirt, Gary Pickering.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: And Greens, and welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Dish and Dirt.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm your often opinionated but rarely wrong host, Gary Picker, coming in from the beautiful downtown Columbia, South Carolina offices of Blair, Cato, Picker, and Castellan, this, the last week of July 2026.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Almost time for school to start back.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Before we can understand why Congress is involved with these hearings, I think we have to understand how we arrived at this moment.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: If you've listened to my podcast over the past year, you know that I've been following this story almost from the beginning.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: First came the changes after the NAR settlement.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Broker just suddenly started realizing that competition on commissions alone wasn't going to be enough to pay the bills.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Then companies started searching for something of more value, inventory, because inventory is scarce.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: Consumers aren't, agents aren't, technology isn't.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Listings are scarce.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: And if you own listings, you don't have to buy leads.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: The leads come to you.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: Compass understood this before probably anyone else.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: And I have given Robert Refkin a ton of crap, but also a ton of credit for recognizing the Zillow problem.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: The Zillow problem being is that Refkin controls about 35% of all listings, but yet they are put on the MLS, which basically then gives them for next to nothing to Zillow.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: Zillow makes billions of dollars off those listings, never says thank you to Refkin, doesn't pay him any money, and then has the audacity to try to sell those leads back to Refkin's agents.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: So I certainly understand why he's pissed off.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: I just think he's going about it the wrong way.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: However, Robert Refkin has repeatedly argued that homeowners should have more choices in how they market the property.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: Compass has developed a marketing strategy that begins with product exclusives, then moves to coming soon phase, and eventually, if the seller chooses, it finally gets to the multiple listing server so everybody can see the property.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: Compass likes to call this a three-phase marketing strategy.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: Critics call it withholding inventory from the public.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: That's what I call it.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: But supporters like to say it's all about giving sellers more control.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: So those are two very different ways of describing the exact same thing.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is this Compass is withholding the data from Zillow.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: It's nothing more than that.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Agents who email me say I'm missing the point.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: It's about helping sellers because they believe the seller has the right to make these choices and they believe what Robert Refkin's selling.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe anything that he's selling.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't think Refkin cares to Iotas about seller choice.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: What he cares about is the data and getting paid for the data and not giving that data for free, which again, he owns 35% of that data to Zillow, his biggest competitor.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: Historically, private exclusives were always relatively rare.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: They were only used when we had celebrities.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: South Carolina doesn't have a lot of celebrities, so it didn't happen a lot here.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you had a divorce situation, security concerns, or homeowners just wanted some privacy.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: But Compass tried to change that conversation.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Instead of treating private exclusives as just an option or an exception to the rule, Compass wanted to start promoting them as the mainstream marketing option available to almost all their sellers.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I talked to Leah Praya about it, out of their 300,000 listings they had at EXP, less than a thousand were marketed as private exclusives, while at the same time, Robert Refkin now is trying to push his number north of 50%.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: So that immediately raises concerns about MLSs, competing brokerages, consumer advocates, and even Zillow.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: Zillow announced it was not going to display any listings that had been publicly marketed outside the MLS beyond a certain limited period.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: And other companies took those same positions, and that's when all the lawsuits started to fly.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: And then consumer organizations stepped in and urged the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to get involved and to investigate whether expanding these private listing networks reduce competition and whether it harm consumers.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: Spoiler alert, it does.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: It does reduce competition and it does harm consumers.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: We have 300 years of economic data to back that up, despite this report that Refkin's trying to push out there that claims the opposite.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, Compass continues to argue that the sellers, not the MLS, not the portal, they get to decide how to market their home.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing how quickly he forgets we have federal laws on how things can be advertised and marketed, and how quickly he forgets that all these loans that people use to buy these houses are also federally backed loans.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: This debate, however, has quickly evolved into something much larger than a simple disagreement over MLS rules.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: It's really a philosophical battle about who ultimately owns the listing data.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Is it the homeowner?
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Is it the listing broker?
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Is it the MLS?
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Is it the portals?
8:11
SPEAKER_01: Or does the public, the public in general, have some interest in broad access to the housing information?
8:18
SPEAKER_01: Pretty sure that's one of the main tenets of fair housing, is that all housing be available to everybody at the same time so that everybody has equal access.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you have fair housing when you start limiting access to certain people.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: And then another significant development occurred.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: COMPAS entered into an agreement with MRED.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: MRED, by the way, is one of the nation's largest multiple listing services out of Chicago.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: That agreement became the focal point of this congressional attention because lawmakers want to understand whether it would reduce competition and limit consumer access to housing information.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: Whether you agree with Refkin and Compass or not, it's kind of beside the point.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Because now the question isn't simply whether private listings are good business.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: The question now is whether they raise a broader concern about competition and consumer protection.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: And that's the question that Congress, not the real estate industry, is about to start asking.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: And that's who, unfortunately, now is going to probably be the one who solves this question.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: So why is Congress paying attention?
9:12
SPEAKER_01: What exactly prompted the House Judiciary Committee to get involved?
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, July 22nd, the letter from Chairman Jim Jordan frames the issue in terms of competition and consumer welfare.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: It's not whether COMPASS violated some MLS rules.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Congress didn't care, but whether certain business practices could affect the housing market itself.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Congress has very vested interest in that.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: One of the central themes that we saw in the letter, again, was transparency.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: And we've been talking about that for many weeks now.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: The committee noted that it is reviewing reports suggesting that agreements involving private listing networks could limit the information available to the buyers and sellers, and it could potentially affect competition in residential real estate.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: And that's a very important distinction.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: What Congress is asking is whether the arrangements that COMPAS is entering into could those affect the competitive marketplace.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: The letter also requests information about COMPASS's and MREDS agreement.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: How are listings being shared?
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Who has access to them?
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Are there any restrictions that would apply, how consumers may be affected?
10:13
SPEAKER_01: It actually seeks documents and communications that would help these lawmakers understand the practical impacts of this agreement.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Congress wants to know whether some listings are effectively being placed inside a closed ecosystem, which they are, where access depends on being affiliated with particular brokerage or network.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: And I've been talking about this as well.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: If all of the listings are owned by one particular brokerage in your community, then all the consumers have to work with those brokerages.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: That's very anti-competition.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: That's anti-trade.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: It also means that those real estate agents have to go work for that brokerage, or they run the risk of missing out on a large portion of the listings for their clients.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: That also is antitrust, anti-business, anti-competition.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And if that is happening, lawmakers appear to be ready to ask that fundamental question: does restricting access to listing information reduce competition?
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Think about why that matters.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Residential real estate is unlike any other consumer market.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: When someone buys a television, every retailer is competing to show them those products that are available.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: But imagine if Best Buy could keep certain televisions visible only to their best customers?
11:17
SPEAKER_01: And Amazon could have its own private inventory.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: Consumers would probably never know what they're missing.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: And that's the concern that Congress has, and that's what it seems to be what they're trying to explore.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Could private listing networks create fragmented housing markets where consumers can no longer see all available houses?
11:34
SPEAKER_01: That's a real possibility here.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: And could that reduce competition occur amongst buyers?
11:39
SPEAKER_01: And if it does, does that not affect house pricing?
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Could it influence the buyers and their choice of which agents to work with?
11:45
SPEAKER_01: And could it also influence where those agents have to associate?
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Again, those are questions, not conclusions.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: I think I know the answer to them, but we'll let Congress decide.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: But those are significant questions because they move this debate away from an industry policy debate into the realm of federal competition laws.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: And that's where this thing's really going.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not even going at the fair housing route, it is literally going to the anti-competition, the antitrust route, which is what I told you would happen if they continued down this road.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not a genius.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a real estate lawyer from South Carolina.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And if I can figure this out, I don't know why these powers that be at these major brokerage companies can't see this happening.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: And that's why this story deserves everyone's attention.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Because whether you're an independent broker, a realtor, closing attorney, or simply someone who hopes to buy a home, the answer to those questions could shape how residential real estate is marketed for years to come.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the most important aspects of the congressional letter is what it doesn't say.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't accuse COMPAS of violating MLS rules, it doesn't accuse MRAD of violating antitrust rules.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: Instead, it questions about those incentives.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's where this conversation becomes real fascinating to me.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: Because in real estate, incentives drive behavior.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: Seller paid closing cost, paying your real estate agent commission.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: If you change the incentives, you could change the market.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: So let's think about this from a purely business standpoint.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: If a brokerage has a list and that's only available inside its own company or inside some type of limited network, that brokerage has much greater opportunity to sell both sides of the transaction.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, before anyone misunderstands me, I am not saying that dual agency is illegal.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: It is legal in many states, almost all states.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be, in my opinion.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: South Carolina does have dual agency as long as we have proper disclosure and consent.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: I think we need dual agency at the broker level, but I don't think we need to have dual agency at the individual agent level.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: But there's nothing right now inherently illegal about representing both parties if the law allows it, and you have the proper disclosures that are being made.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: But there is a difference between something being legal and the market creating incentives to make it happen more often.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: And you know, people all the time say, well, that's legal.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: You know what's still legal today is advertising co-op commissions on the multiple listing service.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: There's no law that prohibits that from happening, but yet you still lost a$1.5 billion verdict on that.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: So don't come to me and tell me what's legal and what's not legal.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: It's what these lawsuits will entail.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: Now, Congress appears to be asking whether private listing networks increase those incentives.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to think about it.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: If only I have access to a property, who is most likely to bring the buyer?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: My agents.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: If my agents bring the buyer, then who's going to get both sides of the commission?
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, my brokerage would.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: And if my brokerage also has an affiliated lender, that affiliated lender is going to get the mortgage.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: If we have an affiliated title company, my title company is going to get that title work.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Homeowner's insurance, same thing.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly one listing has become the center of an entire ecosystem of revenue.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Now let's take it one step further.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Imagine you're a buyer's agent, your client asks to see every available house in this particular neighborhood at this particular price point.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Can you honestly say that you've shown them every house if they are private networks that you cannot even access?
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And if your client can't see those homes, are they really making an informed purchasing decision?
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And those are very difficult questions that need to be resolved.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: And here's another one.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Suppose you're the listing agent, your seller says, I want the highest possible price.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: And historically, that answer has been simple: expose the property to the largest possible audience.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: That's how you get the biggest price.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: That is 300 years of economic science.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: That's not Gary making this up.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: But the more people who know about a home, the more competition, the likelihood of multiple offers, and the greater the likelihood of achieving the highest market price.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: It's very simple economics.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be an economist to figure this out.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Private listing advocates, however, like to respond by saying not every seller wants maximum exposure.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: And they are right.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Some sellers would prioritize privacy over price.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Not many.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: People say they want privacy until they see that offer, and then they want the privacy and they want the highest offer.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: Some people simply don't want people coming through their homes, they won't have security issues.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Those are all legitimate reasons.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: And the question Congress appears to be asking is different than that.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: When private marketing moves from being the exception to becoming a widespread business strategy, do the incentives begin to shift?
16:10
SPEAKER_01: Does the brokerage now start to benefit more than the seller benefits?
16:14
SPEAKER_01: And the answer to that is absolutely.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Do agents begin steering sellers toward private marketing because it creates more opportunities for in-house transactions?
16:22
SPEAKER_01: 100% it does.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And anybody who tells you otherwise is 100% gaslighting.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Congress hasn't answered those questions yet, neither the courts, but now they're starting to ask those.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: And when lawmakers begin examining incentives instead of just policies, they're looking much deeper than the surface of that MLS rules.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: They're examining how the marketplace itself functions.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: And here's where I may disagree with almost everyone involved in this debate.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: I think Congress is asking an important question.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm just not sure they're asking the right questions, because I don't believe private listings here might be even the real story.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: I think they're merely the symptom.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: The real story is the vertical integration.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: So let's step back here and let's look at what's happened over the last decade.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: The traditional real estate transaction used to involve independent professionals: a real estate agent, a mortgage lender, a closing attorney title company, a homeowner's insurance, a home inspector survey.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: Each business was largely independent, and each one of these businesses earned its own business from that consumer.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Today, however, many of these companies are trying to bring everything under one service, under one single corporate umbrella.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: They don't want just your listing.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: They want the buyer, they want the financing, the title work, the title insurance, the homeowner's insurance, the home warranty, the moving service.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And increasingly they want all that data because data is the most valuable asset in all of this in real estate.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Every home search, every saved property, every single mortgage inquiry, every insurance quote, every showing request, every click, every AI search, everything, all those interactions create information.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: And information that can be used to predict consumer behavior.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: That information then can become monetized, and you can train artificial intelligence, and that information becomes increasingly valuable.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: So maybe the real competition isn't over listings, maybe it's over the data, as I've been saying for a long time.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Because if I control the listings, I control where the consumer begins to search, I control where consumers begin, I control the data.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: If I control the data, I control the future.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: Think about it for one second.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Google.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Google did not become one of the world's most valuable companies because it owned a bunch of websites.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: It became valuable because it controlled access to information that it could sell.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with Amazon.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Amazon doesn't manufacture hardly any of the products in its sales, but it controls the marketplace.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with Apple.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: It controls the ecosystem.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Compass, Zillow, Homes.com, Realtor.com, Redfin, Rocket, they're all trying to build their own ecosystem.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: Different ecosystems, but ecosystems nevertheless.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: If one company controls the consumer relationship from the first online search until the day that the buyer receives the keys, what happens to everyone else?
18:57
SPEAKER_01: What happens to independent real estate brokerage?
18:59
SPEAKER_01: What happens to independent lenders?
19:00
SPEAKER_01: What happens to independent inspectors?
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Title companies.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: Consumers still have the right to choose, but if a platform controls the experience from beginning to end, how often will consumers actually exercise true freedom of choice?
19:12
SPEAKER_01: That's the question I've been asking for months, not because I impose innovation.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: Innovation's inevitable.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: We're going to have it.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: AI technology is here.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful, quite frankly.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: I enjoy AI technology.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Consumers deserve the better and easier way of buying and searching a house.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: But history also tells us, guys, that whenever one company controls too much of the customer journey, regulators at the federal government are eventually going to begin asking these hard questions.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Think of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Ticketmaster.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Each of these companies reached a point where regulators started asking, has success turned into market power?
19:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where the conversation is headed.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Private listings may simply be this catalyst to get this conversation going.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: But the bigger question is whether the future of real estate belongs to an open marketplace or to a handful of vertically integrated platforms.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: There are three of them.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: And they want to control every step of the transaction.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: If that's the real issue, then Congress may just be getting started because I don't know how anybody can sit here today and saying having three major platforms to control from A to Z in a real estate transaction is good for the consumer, good for consumer choice, good for consumer pricing.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: It is not.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: So what does this all mean for South Carolina?
20:21
SPEAKER_01: Because I know some of you are thinking, well, this is a compass issue, this is MRED issue, this is Chicago, this has nothing to do.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: What do I care if I'm practicing here in South Carolina?
20:28
SPEAKER_01: Because these issues, they're already here in South Carolina.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I would argue South Carolina has been dealing with many of these questions long before Congress got involved.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Think about what we've been discussing over the last several months.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about private exclusive, office exclusive, clear cooperation, fair housing, fiduciary duties, disclosure coming soon.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: And we've been talking about these title companies and these lenders entering in these joint ventures, which I believe also violates RESPA rules and regulations with these builders.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't buy house without using their lender, their title company, their title insurance, their insurance.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's becoming a big issue.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And these issues are issues that every South Carolina brokerage has to address today.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: And they're exactly the same issues that the South Carolina Real Estate Commission has also started looking at.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Now let me be clear: no one on the real estate commission is saying that private listings should be prohibited.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: There are absolutely circumstances where private listings are appropriate.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: But notice something.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: Historically, those have always been exceptions to the rules, not the norm.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And Congress appears to be asking the same question that many regulators are starting to ask.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: What happens when the exception becomes the business model?
21:33
SPEAKER_01: That's an entirely different conversation.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Here in South Carolina, every licensee owes fiduciary duties to their client, whether it's loyalty, obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, reasonable care, or accounting, those duties don't disappear simply because the seller chooses private marketing.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I would argue they become even more important there because if you're recommending that a seller limit exposure to the marketplace, you better be able to explain why that recommendation is in the seller's best interest.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And not your broker's best interest.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Begin with the answer instead of beginning with the analysis.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: They decide they want to use the private exclusives, then they justify it going backward.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: The question should always be: why is this in my client's best interest?
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Not why is this good for my brokerage?
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And if your answer is because this is what our company encourages, because we think it's good for the seller, I don't think that's enough.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Your fiduciary duty runs to your client, not your franchise, not the MLS, not your portal, not your brokerage, but to your client.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: And that's why documentation is becoming so important.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: If a seller truly understands that broader exposure may generate more interest, and if the seller understands there may be fewer showings, and that some buyers may never even know this property exists, and if the seller understands all that and still chooses limited marketing, that's a very different situation than simply steering every seller into a private listing because that's company policy and this is how we're going to try to raise more money.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: I also think fair housing deserves renewed attention.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: I've been talking about this for a long time.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons MLSs became so important was because they democracized information.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Instead of homes being marketed only through personal relationship, country club memberships, or who you happen to know, listings were more broadly available to everyone.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: And that is in everybody's best interest.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: Private networks, by their very nature, reduce that exposure.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't automatically create a fair housing violation, but it does increase the very risk that certain buyers may never learn about housing opportunities.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: That is not good in any society.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: And regulators have repeatedly emphasized that policies with a disparate impact, even if well-intentioned, deserve careful scrutiny.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: So while this congressional inquiry focuses on COMPAS and MRED, every South Carolina broker should be asking themselves this very simple question: if Congress called me tomorrow and asked me to explain my private listing policy, could I confidently explain how it protects consumers and serves my clients' best interests?
23:57
SPEAKER_01: If the answer is no, well, guess what?
23:59
SPEAKER_01: It's time for you to revisit those policies.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: So where do we go from here?
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, no one knows.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And that's what makes this one of the biggest stories in real estate today.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: This is the beginning of the conversation, not the end.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: But do not underestimate the significance of congressional oversight.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Many major antitrust investigations in American history started exactly this way: a few letters, requests for some documents, a few hearings, more questions, and then regulators start paying attention.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes everything changes.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the possibility.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: I think there's four.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: The first possibility is that nothing significantly comes from this.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: Congress reviews the documents, they conclude there's no legislative action needed, and they just move on.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And that's entirely possible because I don't put anything past the ineptitude of Congress.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: The second possibility is that Congress refers certain concerns that they have to the Department of Justice or to the Federal Trade Commission, and they want additional review.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Remember, antitrust enforcement does not begin with Congress.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: Congress can ask those questions and hold hearings, but enforcement generally falls to either the DOJ or the FTC.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: A third possibility is we get some legislative changes.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Congress could decide they want greater transparency in residential real estate because they believe that serves the public's interest, or they propose some laws requiring broader consumer access to listings or direct federal agencies to study these practices.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Whether those proposals become law is an entirely different question altogether.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: And then there's the fourth possibility, and this is one that may be the most likely.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the market changes before Congress even acts, because brokerages do not like uncertainty.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: The MLSs do not like uncertainty.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Investors don't like uncertainty.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: Product scrutiny alone could influence these business decisions because when there is uncertainty, that could have a negative and adverse effect on the actual real estate market.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Companies often adjust policies, they revise agreements, they increase disclosures simply because they know regulators are watching.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes just putting the spotlight on this could change behaviors long before any law could ever come in to change it.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Now let's bring this back to the bigger picture.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: At first glance, a story about who controls the consumer relationship, who controls the data, who controls the inventory, and ultimately really who controls the future residential real estate.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's why this congressional inquiry matters so much.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Not because of what it has already decided, but because of the questions it's likely to ask.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: Those questions aren't going to go away.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: They're not going to be easily ignored.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think we're only in the first inning of this ballgame.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: And over the next several years, we're going to see more and more lawsuits.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see more regulatory scrutiny, more policy debates, more acquisitions, more vertical integration attempts, but perhaps more importantly, more companies are going to be competing to become the platform that owns the entire real estate experience.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: And the only question is will that future create more consumer choices or less?
26:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's the debate Congress has now joined into.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think we've heard the last of it.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: As we wrap up today, I want to leave you with one final thought.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: Reasonable people can disagree.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: We do not have to agree on this.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: This is Gary's show.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm often opinionated.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm really wrong, but these are my opinions.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to be yours.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be, but you don't have to be.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: But regardless where you stand, don't miss what's happening beneath the surface.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: This isn't really about compass.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: It's not about MRED.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: And hell, it's probably not even about these private listings.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Those are the headlines.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: The real story is much, much bigger.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: The real story is that residential real estate is becoming fundamentally reorganized.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: The business model is changing.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: Has to, because the brokerage model is broken.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: Technology's changing, artificial intelligence is changing everything, consumer expectations since COVID are vastly changing.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: The relationship between brokerages and the MLS is changing.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: The relationship between the portals and the brokerages are changing.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: And the relationship between consumers and real estate professionals like yourself, that's also changing.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: But now, the government is scrutinizing that change.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Those are enormous shifts in a very short period of time.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: In my opinion, we are witnessing one of the most significant transitions in the history of residential real estate.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: The decisions made over the next few years won't simply determine where listings appear.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: They'll determine who controls the flow of information, who controls consumer relationships, and who captures the economic value created by every single real estate transaction.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: And perhaps most importantly, whether the future of residential real estate remains an open marketplace or it involves into a collection of two or three competing private ecosystems.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Whenever information becomes concentrated, whenever fewer companies control more of the consumer experience, history tells us that regulators eventually will start asking those difficult questions.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what we're seeing today.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And I suspect that this is only the very, very beginning.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: Who should control access to housing information in America?
29:02
SPEAKER_01: Should it be private companies, a cooperative marketplace, individual homeowners, or should the system be designed so that every consumer has the broadest possible access to every available home?
29:14
SPEAKER_01: I think every consumer should have exactly the same opportunity to buy your house.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: But that's the debate.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: And that's why Congress is paying such close attention, and that's why every real estate professional should be paying attention too.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Because regardless of where this investigation ultimately leads, the future of real estate is being written right now, and Congress is now involved.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And every single one of us has a stake in how this story ends.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: I hope everybody enjoyed today's Dish and Dirt.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: If you like it, please subscribe to us.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Tell other real estate agents about it.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: We'll be back again with another episode of Dish and Dirt.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Y'all take care.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Have a great weekend.