Important News Regarding CRMLS and New NAR Policy

Last month, the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) adopted a new MLS policy called Multiple Listing Options for Sellers. The primary aim of this policy is to allow sellers that are publicly marketing their properties to delay when they are available through Internet Data Exchange (IDX) and syndication for a specific period of time. NAR is allowing MLSs to implement this policy at their discretion by September 30. For more information on NAR’s announcement, click here.

After careful review and consideration, CRMLS will NOT be adopting this new policy and will instead use options already available to users to accommodate the aims of NAR’s request.

Please read below to understand where this policy came from, why we have chosen not to adopt it, and what we will be doing instead.

Key Takeaways

• The CRMLS Board of Directors has voted to NOT make any listing status changes nor offer any limitations to IDX/Syndication in response to the new NAR policy.
• The existing CRMLS data distribution system already provides almost all the same choices to sellers as the new NAR policy.
• Transparency (being open, honest and clear) is the primary hallmark of CRMLS. Implementing a new status would only complicate things and create confusion for our agents and brokers.
• Consumers will be most affected by this new policy, as they’ll need to create accounts on each major portal just to view active listings.
  
  

Why is CRMLS Choosing Not to Make Any Changes?

Simply put… there is no need. This new policy does not provide any additional seller choices or options, is not clear nor easy to understand or explain, and we don’t need to complicate things.

In short, implementing a new status would be a disservice to our users due to the possibility of:

• Increased compliance confusion
• Redundant or overlapping statuses
• Additional hurdles to day-to-day business operations
• Lack of clear communication to clients about where their listings will appear online
  
  

What Will CRMLS Do Instead?

CRMLS can achieve the policy’s aims and maintain transparency without introducing any new statuses. We will instead rely upon the Active status, which already accommodates the spirit of the new policy. CRMLS is exploring additional features that may be used alongside the Active status to support the NAR policy.

What Led to the New NAR Policy?

To understand why we have refused, we must explain where the impetus for this new policy came from:

• NAR was under increasing pressure from powerful, national brokerages to drop the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP).
• Dropping the CCP would allow those brokerages to publicly market the listing while keeping their listings out of public circulation, essentially creating private listing networks.
• In an effort to maintain CCP as-is and to placate those complaining brokerages, NAR created this Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy.
  
  

What Does the New NAR Policy Do?

The policy introduces a new category of exempt listings called “delayed marketing exempt listings.” Based on the NAR policy, this “new” listing category must be:

1. placed in the MLS for cooperation,
2. available for all MLS users to search and send to their customers,
3. be available for showings,
4. open for submitting offers, and
5. placed in the CRMLS VOW data feed, but
6. shall not be in the IDX or syndication data feed.

CRMLS already meets the first five requirements of the NAR policy through the existing “Active” status. This status includes all necessary elements and allows brokers to opt out of IDX and syndication at the office level. Sellers concerned about privacy can instruct their broker to opt their listing out of all internet distribution.

The only missing feature is listing-specific opt-outs for IDX or syndication. If this option is implemented, any website that displays listings could simply switch to a VOW (Virtual Office Website) feed, effectively bypassing the “IDX=No” designation. Also, major portals like Zillow, Redfin, and other large broker/franchise websites already receive CRMLS VOW feeds, which include all listings, thereby making the new policy ineffective. This means listings will appear on these major sites but not on the nearly 30,000 CRMLS IDX websites or Realtor.com, which doesn’t use a VOW. Is that really what sellers want?

Additionally — and unfortunately — consumers will be the ones most affected by this new policy, as they’ll need to create accounts on each VOW site just to view ALL available active listings.

CRMLS, as a broker cooperative and pro-consumer advocate, opposes private listings and information silos, which harm marketplace transparency. Our current listing statuses are carefully crafted to be to both the agent’s and the consumer’s benefit, so the need for any additional policies that would allow for or encourage hiding listing content goes against CRMLS’s core tenets.

It’s time to stop unnecessarily changing up the rules and to let agents and brokers get back to work.

We aim to have our user’s best interest at the forefront of all decisions we make. Stay tuned for additional updates and thank you for your continued support during times of change.