I’ve been in real estate for 50 years. I’ve sat across the kitchen table from more than 10,000 sellers, sold more than 10,000 homes, and practiced real estate law for decades. I was ranked the No. 1 agent in my state by Realtor Magazine. I’m not saying that to impress anyone. I’m saying it because what I’m about to tell you comes from a career spent in the trenches, not behind a podium.
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Robert Reffkin’s recent Inman op-ed on fiduciary duty and MLS mandates didn’t just make a legal argument. It exposed a fault line that runs beneath the entire real estate profession. And he’s right.
Reffkin didn’t need to pick this fight. After acquiring Anywhere and its collection of highly regarded brands, Compass was already a force in American real estate. The safe play was to consolidate, integrate and count the revenue.
Instead, Reffkin chose to put a publicly traded company on the line to challenge the very institutions that most industry leaders wouldn’t dare question. When I met with him, he looked me in the eye and told me he believed this was the right thing to do, not just for Compass agents, but for all agents.
After half a century in this business, I’ve developed a reliable instinct for who’s genuine and who’s posturing. Reffkin is genuine.
But this op-ed isn’t about Robert Reffkin. It’s about you.
Before the MLS
Let me take you back to where I started. I sold real estate with my father in Cincinnati before there was a structured MLS. Agents shared listings flipping through photocopied listing sheets in giant, black three-ring binders.
Was it primitive? Sure. But the concept behind what eventually became the modern MLS was brilliant: Brokers sharing inventory with other brokers so sellers could reach more buyers and buyers could see more homes. A win for everyone.
That original concept delivered extraordinary value. It still does. Data accuracy, comparable sales, IDX syndication, cooperation between firms. These are real benefits, and I don’t take them for granted.
A system of control
But somewhere along the way, the MLS evolved from a tool that serves agents into a system that controls them. And that distinction matters enormously, because it strikes at the heart of what it means to be a professional.
Think about what a professional actually is. A doctor designs a treatment plan based on each patient’s circumstances. A lawyer crafts a strategy tailored to each client’s situation. An architect doesn’t hand every client the same blueprint. The defining characteristic of a profession is the exercise of independent judgment in service of each client’s best interests.
Now consider what happens when an MLS imposes a one-size-fits-all marketing mandate on every listing, regardless of the property, the market or the seller’s wishes. It strips away the very thing that makes real estate a profession. It turns agents into workers following instructions handed down by a private trade organization rather than exercising their own expertise on behalf of the person who hired them.
That’s not professionalism. That’s commoditization. And it’s exactly the opposite of what agents and sellers deserve.
Where the MLS oversteps
Here’s where the legal problem becomes unavoidable. In almost every state, a listing agent owes a fiduciary duty or a statutory duty to the seller. That duty includes obedience, which means following the client’s lawful instructions. Not the MLS’s instructions. Not NAR’s preferences. The client’s instructions.
When a seller says, “I want to avoid visible days on the market. I want to avoid a record of price adjustments. So, market my home as a coming-soon listing for two weeks before going active on the MLS,” that is a lawful directive from the person who owns the property and is paying for the service.
If the agent complies with that request and the MLS responds with a fine or a threat to revoke access, that’s simply wrong. No licensed professional in any field should ever face that choice.
When an MLS fines an agent for following a seller’s desired marketing plan after the agent explains the advantages and disadvantages of immediate MLS exposure, the MLS has manufactured a financial conflict of interest for that agent.
Under state law, that conflict of interest must be disclosed to the seller. Imagine that conversation: “I’d like to follow your instructions, but my MLS can fine me up to $5,000 if I do, so I’m recommending we do what they want instead.”
That’s not a fiduciary relationship. That’s a hostage situation.
Let sellers choose
Now, with coming-soon listings being publicly marketed on numerous major home search portals, the MLS can no longer claim it’s the only gateway to public exposure. Hundreds of millions of consumers are seeing these “coming soon” listings. The transparency argument is gone. What remains is a system protecting its own relevance at the expense of the professionals it was created to serve.
I want to be clear. I value the MLS. I’ve benefited from it for decades. Some leading MLSs have adopted flexible coming-soon policies, proving you can modernize without losing the cooperative foundation that makes the system valuable. Those MLSs understand the way to remain indispensable is to serve your members, not coerce them.
After 50 years and 10,000 kitchen tables, I can tell you this with certainty. Real estate agents are among the hardest-working, most resilient professionals I’ve ever known. They deserve a system that trusts their judgment, respects their expertise and lets them serve their clients without fear of punishment for doing exactly what the law requires.
Let agents be professionals. Let sellers choose. And let the MLS do what it was always meant to do: Serve the people who built this industry, not rule them.
Greg Hague is CEO of 72SOLD, a real estate attorney, broker and agent with 50 years of industry experience. Connect with him on Facebook or LinkedIn.
