How the country's largest MLS is pitching its value
Are MLSs still relevant in real estate’s new era? Absolutely, says California Regional MLS, whose new campaign focuses on adaptation and member empowerment.
Key points:
- The campaign, launched Jan. 6, aims to redefine CRMLS’s core values and help its members articulate their own value to clients.
- CRMLS outlines 4 tenets related to transparency, trust, broker and agent support, and the importance of being proactive as the industry evolves.
- As MLSs face questions about their worth and membership declines, "the need for innovative thinking is at an all-time high," said CEO Art Carter.
The largest multiple listing service in the U.S. has a New Year's resolution: To clearly define the value of the MLS, and in turn, to help agents and brokers better articulate the value they provide to consumers.
After what it described as a year of "upheaval," "anxiety" and "uncertainty," the California Regional Multiple Listing Service has announced a new campaign intended to reshape the narrative around real estate. Dubbed CRMLS 2025: Value Redefined, it introduces four tenets and explains how those principles can help CRMLS subscribers meet their business goals, said CEO Art Carter.
"This isn't just CRMLS staking a claim on its own value, it's about ensuring that all our users know they are still vital to the real estate transaction, even if how they communicate that has changed," Carter said. "While the structure of the business may be different, the intrinsic knowledge isn't, so it's on CRMLS to make sure all our agents and brokers know that what they provide clients is still invaluable."
The 4 components of value
CRMLS has defined its core values as focused transparency, broker-first philosophy, user-oriented mindset and proactive vision.
Beginning with transparency, CRMLS wants to make it clear that MLSs remain a trusted source where there is "no secrets, no withholding information, no tricks," according to the announcement. That will allow subscribers "to make informed decisions founded on integrity through open and honest communication," the campaign website elaborates.
In outlining the other key tenets, CRLMS describes itself as "a broker collective" — with the MLS as a supportive guide — and says it seeks to empower users, who are "at the heart of every decision" to help themselves by leveraging the products, services and education the MLS provides.
CRMLS's vision is to move past "the old ways" of doing business, while anticipating opportunities and changes to come — a theme Carter discussed in early November while reflecting on the anniversary of the Sitzer/Burnett verdict and how it has reshaped the industry.
Prior to the August deadline to implement policy changes, Carter talked to real estate professionals across the country about how to prepare. "I was pleasantly surprised by how many people adapted to the changes ahead," he told Real Estate News at the time. "While some were unhappy to hear their way of doing business was shifting, just as many — or more — were eager to discuss how to navigate this new landscape."
Countering perceptions of diminished value
CRMLS's efforts to double down on communicating value come at a crucial time for all MLSs. To comply with the NAR settlement, the organizations can no longer include offers of compensation on their platforms — a change that has made MLSs "somewhat" or "much" less valuable, according to 55% of real estate professionals in an October survey from WAV Group.
CRMLS wasn't surprised to see membership decline by 5% after the practice changes took effect, Carter said. To try and get ahead of further losses, the organization surveyed its massive subscriber base, asking them directly what value CRMLS can provide.
"While the survey results were largely positive across the board, we identified a strong desire for guidance on how to successfully do business while remaining compliant in the evolving 2025 real estate landscape," Carter said in an email. "With these insights in hand, we developed a plan to address our users' needs."
As other MLSs and associations brace for membership declines — 70% are budgeting for losses in 2025, according to a recent T3 Sixty poll — they might benefit from developing plans of their own. "It is not okay anymore to simply assume association members and MLS subscribers truly understand the depth of value offered," WAV Group CEO Marilyn Wilson advised in October.
How will MLSs and associations pivot in 2025?
Between policy changes, the sale of an MLS to a private entity and a dispute between NAR and a local association over MLS access for non-Realtors, 2024 was an eventful year for organized real estate.
Carter is expecting more associations and MLSs to try new things in 2025.
"It's a new era, and the need for innovative thinking is at an all-time high. Change is an essential driver of growth and sustainability. Just how far the changes will go remains to be seen," Carter said.