With fewer MLS organizations and an increasingly limited pool of experienced executives, hybrid and remote work may be one of the smartest recruiting strategies available.
There are just 484 MLSs remaining in the United States, according to RESO, and consolidation continues to reduce that number. As MLS organizations become larger and more sophisticated, the competition for experienced leadership is becoming more intense.
Here’s something that MLS Search Committees need to understand: There simply aren’t that many experienced MLS executives available to recruit. Recruiting an MLS CEO is not like recruiting a real estate agent. If your first group of prospects isn’t interested, you can’t simply go find another hundred equally qualified candidates. And yet, some MLS organizations continue to make recruiting even more difficult by insisting that their next CEO or senior executive relocate to their market.
It’s time to rethink that requirement.
Let’s Look at the Numbers
Imagine you’re recruiting a CEO for an MLS with 10,000 subscribers. You want someone with demonstrated MLS leadership experience, strong technology knowledge, financial expertise, and the ability to build trusted relationships with brokers.
Ideally, you would like to attract a successful CEO from a somewhat smaller MLS who sees your organization as a meaningful next step in their career.
According to the 2026 Real Estate Almanac from T3 Sixty, there are only 57 MLSs nationally with 3,500 to 9,999 subscribers. Another 20 MLSs fall into the 10,000-to-19,999 subscriber category.
Those 57 smaller organizations provide a logical starting point for identifying CEOs who might see a 10,000-subscriber MLS as an attractive career opportunity. You can certainly consider strong leaders from smaller organizations or COOs and other executives from larger MLSs, but the pool of proven candidates is surprisingly limited.
Now think about how quickly that pool shrinks. Some CEOs are extremely happy where they are and have no desire to leave. Others will only consider a position with significantly more responsibility and higher compensation. Some have spouses with established careers, children in school, or aging parents who depend on them. Others simply aren’t interested in moving across the country.
Then the Search Committee needs to evaluate the truly important qualifications: strategic thinking, technology leadership, financial management, broker relationships, organizational culture, communication skills, and the ability to lead change. And finally, there’s that intangible element every Search Committee recognizes when they experience it: the candidate who just feels right for the organization. By the time you work through all those considerations, your pool of qualified, interested candidates can become incredibly small. Every additional requirement you place on candidates makes that pool smaller. Requiring relocation may be eliminating some of your strongest prospects before you ever have a conversation with them.
Some of the Best MLSs Already Support Remote/Hybrid
Look at Hive MLS, one of the fastest-growing MLS organizations in America. Hive operates with an entirely remote workforce. By removing geographic restrictions, it has been able to recruit exceptional professionals from across the industry while expanding its service footprint.
Bright MLS, the nation’s largest MLS, has also embraced remote and hybrid employment arrangements. This allows Bright to attract highly experienced strategists, technology experts, and operational leaders without limiting its search to executives willing to relocate to the Mid-Atlantic.
PrimeMLS provides another excellent example. Its Chief Operating Officer lives in Alabama while working effectively with colleagues serving customers throughout New England. The CTO for xxxx does not even live in the United States.
These aren’t hypothetical examples. These are respected MLS organizations demonstrating that excellent leadership and strong organizational performance do not require everyone to work in the same building.
MLS Customers’ Expectations Have Changed
Think about how dramatically MLS customer service has evolved. Gone are the days when subscribers routinely visited the MLS office for training, technical assistance, or information. Today, they expect responsive support through phone, chat, email, video conferencing, and increasingly AI-powered solutions.
Training happens online. Technology demonstrations happen virtually. Most customer questions can be resolved without anyone visiting an office. If we have transformed the way we support our customers, why are some MLS organizations still insisting on traditional office arrangements for their employees?
Remote work can also deliver significant financial advantages. Organizations may need less office space, furniture, utilities, and other physical infrastructure. Geographically distributed employees can even improve customer service. Teams located in multiple time zones can provide earlier and later support coverage and make expansion into new markets easier.
Remote Work Can Be Like Giving Employees a Raise
There’s another benefit that deserves attention.
Global Workplace Analytics estimates that employees can save approximately $2,000 to $7,000 annually in transportation and other work-related expenses through remote or hybrid arrangements, depending on their circumstances. Less money spent on gasoline, car maintenance, parking, lunches, and work clothes means employees keep more of what they earn. Employees also recover hours previously lost commuting. That gives them more time for family, personal interests, and responsibilities outside work.
For MLS organizations that cannot always compete with the largest operations on salary, workplace flexibility can become an important advantage in recruiting and retaining outstanding people.
The retention benefits are supported by research. A Stanford-led study published in Nature in 2024 found that employees working from home two days per week had approximately one-third lower resignation rates without negative effects on performance evaluations or promotions.
Technology and AI Make Distributed Teams More Practical Than Ever
Managing a remote workforce is dramatically easier today than it was even five years ago. Modern project management systems allow leaders to monitor progress, track responsibilities, evaluate deadlines, measure productivity, and maintain accountability across distributed teams.
And now agentic AI is creating another important opportunity. As AI-powered systems become capable of handling more routine administrative tasks, reporting, customer inquiries, research, and workflow coordination, employees can devote more attention to higher-value activities.
Instead of measuring performance by who arrives at the office first or leaves last, MLS organizations can increasingly evaluate employees by their actual contributions and results. There still needs to be intentional management, clear communication, strong accountability, and regular opportunities for teams to collaborate personally.
And a CEO must remain connected to the local marketplace. Meeting with brokers, understanding regional business practices, attending Board meetings, and building relationships with customers are essential responsibilities. But none of those activities necessarily requires living ten minutes from the office full-time.
Search Committees Need to Rethink Their Requirements
Before your organization launches a CEO search, I encourage your Search Committee to distinguish between what is truly essential and what has simply become customary. Is relocation genuinely necessary? Could a CEO work remotely while spending meaningful time each month in your market? Could a hybrid arrangement give you access to an exceptional executive who would never consider a full relocation?
More importantly, what matters most: where the CEO lives, or whether that CEO has the vision, experience, relationships, leadership skills, and cultural compatibility to help your organization thrive? The MLS industry is facing increasingly sophisticated challenges involving consolidation, artificial intelligence, data distribution, broker demands, and changing business models. This is exactly the wrong time to unnecessarily restrict access to experienced leadership talent.
There are only so many proven MLS executives in the country. Every artificial restriction you place on your search makes it harder to find the right one. The next great MLS CEO might live three states away, have a spouse with a thriving career, or have family responsibilities that make relocation impossible.That doesn’t make them any less capable of leading your organization.
If you want to recruit the best MLS leaders, maybe it’s time to stop making them move.
Research references
RESO MLS FAQ: https://www.reso.org/mls-faq/
Real Estate Almanac 2026 (MLS tiers): https://www.realestatealmanac.com/multiple-listing-services/2026/mls-tier/large
Stanford/Nature hybrid work study (2024): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07500-2
Global Workplace Analytics: https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/
