New National Home Listings Database Enters the Market
A group of prominent names in the residential real estate arena have joined the fight over who can see residential property listings, creating a new platform called Open Real Estate.
According to CNBC, their goal is to counter private listings, which are becoming increasingly popular in certain markets.
AGNT (which owns eXp Realty and NextHome), HomeServices of America, Keller Williams and Real REMAX Group, four of the nation’s largest brokerages, announced that they are creating a largely open and shared database (API) of listings for brokers.
They are inviting all other brokerages to join it.
Option for Come Private Listings
CNBC said those who do must submit a new listing within one business day and there is an option within the system for certain private listings.
According to its founders, Open Real Estate is designed to counter the increasingly fragmented residential listing market, and specifically private, off-market listings, which are favored by brokerage giant Compass.
Compass is involved in more than half a dozen lawsuits with state and local Multiple Listing Services (MLS) involving listing rules and antitrust claims, CNBC reported.
“We want to ensure that for the American consumer, there’s a complete data set that is capital T truth, that’s reliable as to what is happening in the marketplace,” said Leo Pareja, Chief Executive Officer of AGNT. “So whether it’s MLSs fragmenting, pocket listings, walled gardens, whatever, the goal is to ensure that there’s a complete data set for the American consumer, so buyers and sellers have the most accurate information.”
Those who want to join the platform can do so with no initial charge or fees, CNBC reported.
Initial Investment
Pareja said the four founders are going to make the investment into the infrastructure and the technology. Brown Harris Stevens, Lamacchia Realty, Samson Properties and Windermere are listed as initial participants, CNBC noted.
“It’s clearly a clap back to Compass, firstly,” said Jonathan Miller, a longtime housing market analyst and Director of Markets at StreetMatrix, a housing data and analytics company. “And it’s absolutely better because Compass is literally hiding listings from competitors by design.”
Just after the announcement, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin posted a congratulatory message on X, saying that Compass is “excited that there will be a national real estate listing service that will return the power back to the creator of the listing — the homeowner and their trusted agent. This is good news for all agents and their clients, and we look forward to helping build the next chapter of listing services.”
Pareja’s response to that: “We saw that, and we’re grateful for his appreciation, and he’s very much invited. We’d love to have him participate.”
There is one part of the Open Real Estate platform that does allow for exclusives.
It’s called “participant view.”
Used Sparingly
A property that goes into that view is put into a part of the database, “where only agents that are associated with participating brokerages can see it, and it cannot be publicly marketed by anyone, including the listing agent and the listing brokerage,” according to Open Real Estate’s website.
Pareja noted that the option will be used sparingly and largely for high-profile, celebrity home sellers who are trying to protect their privacy.
