Open Real Estate Got the Brokers to Agree. Now it has to decide Who Holds the Keys. Open Real Estate got rival brokers to agree. Darryl Davis explains who should hold the keys and why an MLS alliance is the answer. Download the white paper. Open Real Estate Got the Brokers to Agree. Now Who Holds the Keys? When Keller Williams, AGNT, HomeServices of America and Real REMAX Group launched Open Real Estate (ORE) on October 26, four fierce competitors agreed in public that housing markets must stay open to all. That's real progress against the private listings trend, and they deserve credit for it. But in his new HousingWire article, Darryl Davis, CSP, one of the industry's most outspoken voices on private listings, raises the question the launch leaves open: Open Real Estate was built to stop one brokerage from controlling too much inventory, and its success depends on making sure four brokerages never do. Why Open Real Estate needs one more step. Davis breaks down what ORE gets right, the five things it must fix, from ownership and seller choice to who gets paid for listing data, and the questions every broker should ask before handing over inventory. His answer draws on the Visa story: competitors can share the rails as long as none of them owns them. It's the same model he lays out in his white paper, Stronger Together, which calls for America's MLSs to unite under one member-elected board convened by CMLS. Read the full article on HousingWire, then click the button below to download the white paper. Stronger Together Why America's MLSs Must Unite Under One Governing Board, and How to Build It June 2026 · 21 pages · PDF Get Darryl Davis's complete blueprint for uniting America's MLSs and protecting the open marketplace. Bring Darryl to Your Organization Want Darryl Davis to break down Open Real Estate, private listings and the future of the MLS for your brokerage, MLS or association? He's available for keynotes, panels and leadership conversations on the issues reshaping the industry.

Brokerage giants launch 'Open Real Estate' in direct challenge to private listing networks. eXp Realty, Keller Williams, HomeServices of America and Real REMAX Group form a free listing-distribution coalition as federal antitrust battles over private home inventory reach a new peak. By Lawrence Dubois / Published: Oct 27 2026, 8:45 AM EDT The battle over who controls America's home listings moved to new ground Sunday, when four of the country's largest brokerage companies announced a shared technology platform designed to counter the growing use of private listing networks and keep property inventory visible to all buyers and agents. The initiative, called Open Real Estate, brings together AGNT Inc. - parent company of eXp Realty and NextHome - HomeServices of America, Keller Williams Realty, and Real REMAX Group. Participation will be free for brokerages of any size. The platform is designed to let agents enter a property listing once and distribute it simultaneously to multiple listing services, real estate portals, and other authorized recipients. Eight additional firms signed on at launch, including Brown Harris Stevens, Lamacchia Realty, Samson Properties, and Windermere Real Estate. The timing is pointed. Compass, the nation's largest brokerage by transaction volume, has spent much of the year in federal court challenging the rules that require publicly marketed homes to be submitted to an MLS within one business day. NAR's Clear Cooperation Policy, which took effect in 2020, still stands - NAR confirmed in July that the rule remains applicable to pre-marketing and office exclusive listings - but the legal pressure against it is reaching a new intensity. Compass filed a federal antitrust suit against California Regional MLS, the country's largest regional listing service, on October 16, asking a court to block enforcement of its mandatory-submission policies. Four days later, six regional MLS organizations - Arizona Regional MLS, Bridge MLS, Canopy MLS, REcolorado, Hive MLS, and Doorify MLS - filed their own federal action against Compass in the Southern District of New York, asking for a court declaration that their listing rules comply with antitrust law. Zillow filed a separate antitrust complaint against Compass and Chicago-area provider MRED in May, alleging the two companies coordinated to pressure the portal into carrying Compass's private listings or risk losing access to regional data. The House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee sought its own staff briefings on the Compass-MRED arrangement over the summer. Open Real Estate stepped into that landscape with an open letter posted at openrealestate.com, titled "Housing Markets Must Remain Open To All." The founding companies wrote that "access, information and transparency should be a benefit, not a barrier" for anyone seeking to purchase a home, and that a healthy market ensures buyers encounter the broadest possible inventory while competitive success accrues to those who create value rather than to those who restrict information. The platform's stated principles are four: expanding buyer access to housing data, helping sellers make genuinely informed marketing decisions, protecting the integrity of listing information, and promoting fair competition regardless of a firm's size or technical resources. Bess Freedman, chief executive of Brown Harris Stevens, which signed on as one of the eight participating launch brokerages, has been among the industry's more vocal voices on the issue. She raised concerns publicly this fall, in remarks reported in connection with the Compass antitrust litigation, that private listings can make it harder for competing agents to access complete property information on behalf of their buyers. Open Real Estate is explicitly designed to run alongside existing MLSs rather than to displace them. The founding companies acknowledged the role regional listing services play in setting local rules and providing infrastructure for agents. That design choice puts the initiative's philosophy in direct contrast to Compass's litigation strategy, which challenges the foundations of mandatory-submission requirements themselves. The competing arguments are worth holding separately. Compass contends that its phased marketing model - moving listings from private exclusive to coming-soon to full MLS - gives sellers more control over their exposure and timing, and that the company requires written seller consent before any off-MLS marketing occurs. MLSs that have challenged the practice in court have cited data showing that roughly 94 to 95 percent of Compass's private-phase listings eventually move to public MLS status regardless, an outcome critics argue weakens the seller-control rationale for withholding listings in the first place. For buyers, the implications are concrete. National active inventory is running near 912,000 listings according to Altos Research, still well below historical norms, and the 30-year fixed mortgage rate sits at 7.38%. In that environment, homes channeled through private brokerage networks before surfacing on public portals directly reduce what any buyer can find without already having a relationship with a specific brokerage. Research cited in ongoing litigation has connected private listing practices to broader affordability concerns, including the possibility that hidden inventory suppresses competing offers that would otherwise benefit sellers. For agents at independent and mid-size firms, the free shared technology layer addresses something more immediately operational: the time spent manually entering the same listing data into multiple MLSs and portals. A single input that routes to all authorized recipients simultaneously would reduce that friction and give smaller operations a distribution reach that currently demands significantly more administrative effort. NAR's advisory board has not taken formal action on Clear Cooperation after reviewing extensive industry feedback, leaving the policy's long-term status unresolved. With at least three active federal antitrust cases touching private listing practices now in various stages of litigation, any court ruling that narrows mandatory-submission requirements would materially raise the competitive pressure on open-listing infrastructure. Sellers reviewing listing agreements should ask their agent specifically which platforms will carry the property from the first day of marketing and what verified data supports any seller-benefit claims for delaying MLS entry. Given the pace of legal change across multiple jurisdictions - including states that have passed legislation requiring written disclosure before any off-MLS marketing - an independent real estate attorney can clarify what disclosure requirements now apply before a listing agreement is signed. Join the Discussion EDITOR'S PICKS