Reffkin ‘mischaracterizes’ new Clear Cooperation data, report author says
The Compass CEO said more than a third of consumers prefer private listings and called out "false narratives" from MLSs. Does that tell the whole story?
Key points:
- A recent survey asked homeowners if they would rather sell their home on or off the MLS, with 35% initially choosing the off-MLS option.
- But after being shown data that homes sell for less when marketed and sold off the MLS, most respondents changed their minds.
- In an Instagram post, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin cited the 35% stat as evidence that the CCP should be eliminated, but the study author said Reffkin “cherry-picked” the data.
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin said a new study shows that more than a third of would-be home sellers want to market their home off the MLS, which, he concluded, means that agents are forced to "breach their fiduciary duty" by following the Clear Cooperation Policy.
"Where else in the country do unelected non-government officials tell 35% of consumers that they have to do something they don't want to do?" Reffkin asked in a Nov. 24 Instagram post.
The data came from 1000watt, a trusted industry resource. However, 1000watt CEO Brian Boero said Reffkin "cherry-picked and grossly mischaracterized" the report's findings, which were more "nuanced and ambiguous" than that.
Reffkin, one of the industry's loudest anti-CCP voices, is "making it sound — as he has all along — like there's this organic upswell of resentment towards being forced to put your home on the MLS," Boero said. "That's not what we found."
What are consumers really saying about the CCP?
The report, which was released last week, is drawn from a survey of 2,000 homeowners. Half were "experienced sellers," meaning they sold a house before. Half had not yet sold a home and were considered "prospective sellers."
"We did find that when we put two scenarios — one on MLS, one off-MLS — in front of prospective home sellers, that 35% said, 'Yeah, I think I would choose to start with off-MLS,' " Boero said.
The 1000watt survey went a step further, telling the 35% who said they'd choose to start off-MLS about research revealing that homes marketed and sold off-MLS get approximately 15% less than homes marketed on the MLS, Boero said.
At that point, nearly three-quarters of those folks "said, 'OK, with that in mind, I'm going to go on-MLS,'" Boero said. "But Reffkin didn't say that," Boero said.
The numbers were even higher when experienced sellers were factored in: 27% of all respondents picked the non-MLS option, but that dropped to 8% after they were told about the research showing that off-MLS homes sell for less.
In his post, Reffkin referred to the finding that on-MLS homes sell for more as a "false narrative," later telling Real Estate News that if selling off-MLS is less lucrative, developers and homebuilders wouldn't do it.
What's next
The future of Clear Cooperation, one of the industry's hottest topics of 2024, is in the hands of the NAR Leadership Team, with "no specific date" for resolution.
Meanwhile, major players in the industry continue to express opposing views on the topic, with Mauricio Umansky, founder and CEO of The Agency, joining Reffkin in advocating for an end to the policy. Leaders representing Zillow, eXp and Anywhere have spoken in favor of keeping the policy, in some cases with alterations.
"What we're talking about here is, do we want an open housing market, or do we want a closed housing market?" Boero asked. "It's really that simple."
An earlier version of this story misstated the number of respondents favoring the non-MLS option.