Michael Wurzer In my post the other day about clear cooperation, I described the two presentations at the RISMedia CEO & Leadership Exchange event last September by Robert Reffkin of Compass and Andy Florance of CoStar as a 1-2 punch against clear cooperation and anti-commingling policies. The debates about clear cooperation have been all over the news, conference circuit, and social media, and I wrote about that here and here, but what’s been quiet and I wish wasn’t is discussion about anti-commingling policies.
Generally, I’m guessing the reason there’s been less news or uproar about anti-commingling is that many MLSs either didn’t have the policy to begin with or are eliminating it if they did, thinking the policy was no big deal either way. I have a slightly different take. I agree that portals and other sites should be able to focus on the best consumer experience, even if that means listings from non-MLS sources are commingled with listings from MLS sources.
Importantly, however, rather than simply eliminating anti-commingling policies, each MLS should include in every license for display of listings a requirement that the listing broker and the MLS be clearly identified as the source of the listings. The MLS is branding the MLS compilation and the listing broker is branding the individual listing. These branding requirements can support each other rather than fight each other. Let me repeat this: Broker, agent, and MLS branding can work together and not against each other. This isn’t a zero-sum game and the branding serves the purpose of consumer awareness and transparency regarding the source of the listings.
Right now it is interesting how different portals handle branding for the MLS, broker, and agent. For example, here’s a listing on Zillow showing the MLS brand for one of our customers, Beaches MLS, in the lower right corner of the primary photo, and then the brokerage (Douglas Elliman) is identified at the bottom.
Here’s the same listing on Homes.com, which doesn’t show the MLS brand in this case (though it does in others) but shows both the listing agent and the brokerage:
Perhaps most interesting is the listing detail page (versus the summary results page for Zillow and Homes shown above) on Realtor.com shows not only the listing agent and broker, but also a logo for the brokerage (Douglas Elliman) in the upper left corner of the primary photo on the listing detail page.
A better approach could be to combine what Realtor.com is doing above and what Zillow is doing on the summary results page, where the MLS logo is in the lower right; something like this:
Couple this is with more prominent and detailed disclosures about source in the body of the listing, and you’d have a much better branding campaign supporting both the listing broker and the MLS that are doing the work to create the listing and the MLS compilation. But what I think would be even better than showing individual MLS logos is what I suggested back in 2008, namely that MLSs should use and promote a consistent national or worldwide brand across all listing displays so that the true source of the listings gets cemented in consumer minds.
Importantly, there was — and remains — an effort by CMLS called Source MLS that could serve exactly this purpose but it hasn’t gained much, if any, traction. In exchanging some emails with Andy Woolley from Homes.com, he indicates local and regional MLS organizations insist on their own branding requirements rather than using SourceMLS or other consistent branding requirements. I think this is a huge mistake by MLSs. Not only is it very difficult for portals to implement, but it dilutes the overall branding effort. Source MLS is a great option and CMLS should be applauded for putting it together, and now I need to figure out why more MLSs don’t use it. Please reach out to me directly if you have any info on why your MLS doesn’t use Source MLS or what issues you see with this opportunity.
Certainly, each MLS has their own license agreement and is entitled to require the license terms it needs for its business, but this is a case where standardizing on something simple like the logo to be used and the positioning will drive the point home that MLSs are delivering value, which is more important today than ever. That is not an antitrust violation. This does not have to be a matter of MLS policy and certainly doesn’t need to be a matter of national MLS policy. But the more MLSs require a consistent brand from the portals, the better the consumer experience will become (because they’ll always know the source of the listings) and the stronger MLSs will become as they power all the major portals. As Saul Klein said recently on LinkedIn, it’s time.