According to Craig Cheatham, the president and CEO of The Realty Alliance, if you were to assign a Facebook relationship status to the relationship between MLSs and brokers it would be “it’s complicated.”
“The MLS is at once the most valuable tool of the broker and, at the same time, it is the thing at which they express the most frustration,” Cheatham told attendees of the Council of MLSs’ (CMLS) 2025 Open House conference in Toronto on Tuesday.
While that frustration may cause headaches for MLS executives, Cheatham said that frustrated brokers are engaged brokers, and in order to continue improving the system, MLSs need that broker engagement. Cheatham said it is especially important now as the industry evolves at such a rapid pace. What brokers and agents want from their MLS today is different from what they wanted a decade ago. With this in mind, as it has done in the past, The Realty Alliance is working on a wishlist of sorts that brokers have for their MLSs.
According to Cheatham, the main guiding principle of what brokers want from their MLS, is for the MLS to “prioritize supporting broker success.”
“I think this would be a very good philosophy to employ,” Cheatham said.
MLSs should ‘get out of the rules business’
Cheatham added that brokers simply want MLSs to be MLSs and to focus on doing the best job they can at their core mission of providing listing data, so agents have the information they need to best serve both their buyers and sellers. In this vein, Cheatham said the brokers in The Realty Alliance would like to see MLS “get out of the rules business.”
While they acknowledge that MLSs need to create more surrounding the accuracy and utility of listing data, they would like MLSs to be less involved in creating rules surrounding the marketing of properties. Additionally, they would like MLSs to stop purchasing technology tools unless it is something widely used by the brokers in the area.
“Showing services and a handful of other products that require most of the market’s use for them to work are the exception,” Cheatham said. “We are tired of buying the product to just have the MLS buy it again for us and our competitors.”
MLSs are stifling ability to innovate
Cheatham also told attendees that brokers feel like the MLS is stifling their ability to innovate by preventing them from gaining access to listing data feeds for legitimate reasons.
“Sometimes it is because the MLS just doesn’t go to the trouble of supporting their brokers in these new ways, but most often it is because the feeds and licenses are out of date and they are incompatible with current use cases that are different than what the MLS anticipated decades ago,” Cheatham said.
An MLS rev share program?
Additionally, at a time when transactions are down, which puts even more pressure on brokers’ already tight margins, Cheatham said that MLSs should be aware that brokers pay attention to how much money the MLSs have in their reserves. According to Cheatham, many brokers are interested in their MLS adopting a revenue share program or for there to be a different fee structure that provides incentives for agents and brokers who submit more listings.
Reflecting on Cheatham’s presentation, Matt Consalvo, the CEO of Arizona Regional MLS, said it is clear that the time for change has arrived.
“I think we all know this, but the brokers are reminding us of it right now,” Consalvo said.
In order to better understand what the real estate professionals in her market would like to see from their MLS, Rebecca Jensen, the president and CEO of Midwest Real Estate Data, said her MLS has developed a broker outreach program.
“In my market there are a few humongous brokers and lots of small brokers, so it is a very different conversation depending on who you are working with,” Jensen said. “So, we created a broker strategic advisory committee and we built it to match the breakdown of the marketplace, so that the small brokers don’t think we are only talking to the big brokers, [but] the big brokers have a chance to make sure they are being heard.”
While making brokers feel heard is important, MLS executives said it is imperative that MLSs also take action to make things better for brokers and agents.
“The question I would ask is, what are you doing to create broker efficiency and reduce pain points?” Consalvo said. “If you find efficiencies for brokers and reduce pain points, you will have raving fans.”
Keep to the core mission
As MLSs and their leaders look to address broker demands, CMLS Open House speakers noted that as The Realty Alliance requested, MLSs should keep the core function of the MLS platform at the forefront.
Ed Zorn, the general counsel and vice president of the nation’s largest MLS, California Regional MLS, acknowledged that it can be challenging to create a marketplace that is balanced between listing brokers on one side and buyers’ agents on the other.
“That’s just the economic reality that it is our job to create that middle ground, that safe place to deliver exactly what brokers need, which is accurate information that is timely and complete,” Zorn said.
Jeremy Crawford, the president and CEO of First MLS, added: “If an MLS doesn’t help the broker transact real estate, then it is not doing its job. That is our foundation.”
While the relationship between MLSs and brokers may have its ups and downs, it does not appear that it will be getting any less complicated any time soon. And although that may be frustrating and meeting broker demands may feel overwhelming, Cheatham said MLSs should keep one core question in mind: “Do my participants feel like we, as an MLS, work for them or do we make our participants feel like they work for us?
“I will tell you among my membership, those who are happy with their MLS will tell you that they feel like their MLS gets up every day and works to support them,” Cheatham said. “Those who are most frustrated with their MLS feel like they have to work for their MLS.”
