CEO Update: NAR Conference & MLS Actions

Each year your GLAR leaders attend the National Association of REALTORS® Conference to optimize new opportunities and collaborate with other association leaders to bring back new strategies, techniques, best practices, and revolutionary products that will help us to continue to provide essential services and benefits that empower you to be successful in your real estate career.

Below is an update on actions that were approved at this year's conference by your NAR Board of Directors, and will be adopted by the Greater Louisville Association of REALTORS®. These changes were made for greater transparency and to better serve both you and the consumer.

NAR GOVERNANCE CHANGES
The NAR Board of Directors and Delegate Body meetings capped off the REALTORS® Conference and Expo in San Diego. They approved nine (out of 10) sweeping changes to NAR governance policy, including new qualifications for NAR volunteer leaders and a newly constituted Board of Directors and Executive Committee. The recommendations were the result of work conducted by a multi-year presidential advisory group, appointed in 2018 by then NAR President Elizabeth Mendenhall and charged with creating a more efficient and transparent governance operation for the 1.5 million member organization. Read more in the NAR Special Report from the Board of Directors meeting.

MLS POLICY CHANGES
1. Policy Statement 8.6: One Data Source. Requires MLSs to offer their participants a single data feed in accordance with the participants’ licensed authorized uses. The rationale is to create efficiencies for brokers who participate in an MLS and who use MLS data for multiple purposes. The data feed must be in compliance with RESO standards.

2. Policy Statement 8.7: Brokerage Back Office Feed. Entitles MLS participants to use, and requires MLSs to provide to participants, a brokerage back-office data feed. The policy defines the data, use, and terms of the feed. There’s no option for participants to opt out of having their listings included. The back-office feed will enable brokerages to better serve their clients and customers by empowering them to use productivity tools and proprietary reports and resources that call for enhanced access to and use of MLS data.

3. Internet Data Exchange (IDX) Policy Statement 7.58 and VOW Policy Statement 7.91: IDX and Vow Broker Attribution. Require that participants’ IDX displays must identify the listing firm and an email or phone number provided by the listing participant in a reasonably prominent location and in a readily visible color and typeface not smaller than the median used in the display of listing data. The same standard would also apply to VOWs but is optional.

4. Display of listing broker offer of compensation. Requires MLSs to include the listing broker’s offer of compensation for each active listing displayed on its consumer-facing websites and in MLS data feeds provided to participants and subscribers; also requires MLSs to permit participants or subscribers, at their discretion, to share offers of compensation through IDX and VOW displays or through any other form or format provided to clients and consumers. Information about offers of compensation must be accompanied by a disclaimer stating that the offer is made only to participants of the MLS where the listing is filed.

5. MLS Policy Statement 8.4: Services advertised as “free.” Prohibits MLS participants and subscribers from representing that their brokerage services to a buyer client or customer are free or available at no cost to their client, unless the participant or subscriber will receive no financial compensation from any source for those services. Similar language is being considered for Standard of Practice 12-1 as part of a recommendation from the NAR Professional Standards Committee. A comprehensive summary of board actions will be posted on nar.realtor.

6. MLS Policy Statement 8.5: Non-filtering listings based on offers or compensation or name of the brokerage or agent. Prohibits MLS participants and subscribers from filtering out or restricting listings, in listing information that’s searchable and displayed to consumers, based on the level of compensation offered to the cooperating broker or the name of a brokerage or agent; also prohibits MLSs from enabling the ability to filter out listings on the basis of compensation or name of brokerage or agent. Policy Statements 7.58 and 7.91 are amended, too, to bring IDX and VOW policy in line with this rule. The rule doesn’t prohibit participants, on their IDX displays and virtual office websites, from sorting listings to show their own listings first.

These policies take effect Jan. 1, 2022, though MLSs could implement them earlier if they choose.

MORE CONFERENCE RESOURCES
For more information, you can visit the MLS Policy page on NAR.realtor.

To read the full conference recap, click here.
To watch video recaps of the conference, click here.