The real estate industry is watching the legal battles over Artificial Intelligence closely. At the center of this conversation is The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp. & OpenAI, a federal copyright lawsuit pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Stellar MLS launched Stellar MLS Home Search today at StellarMLS.com, powered by the Broker Public Portal's Cribio technology. With more than 75,000 customers across 20 associations in Florida and Puerto Rico, Stellar is one of the largest MLSs in the country, and its decision reflects a broader shift. MLSs across the country are independently reaching the same conclusion about how best to serve their customers.
Association Dues and MLS subscriptions will never fund the MLS you need to operate. MLSs and boards that keep treating non-dues revenue as a side hustle are leaving money on the table. The associations and MLSs winning this decade aren't the ones chasing the next shiny vendor deal. They're the ones building disciplined, recurring non-dues revenue programs that make membership more valuable without stepping on the one thing that keeps brokers writing checks to the MLS: their own product differentiation.
The MLS industry is being reshaped by private listing strategies, changing rules around cooperation and public marketing, questions about who controls and licenses real estate data, and the rapid rise of AI. Against that backdrop, Daniel Jones of Hive MLS has created a new Declaration of MLS Stewardship Principles - and MLS Constitution – that defines the core tenets of an MLS and establish a framework around which MLSs could create a Federation. This certainly will be a hot topic at the upcoming CMLS Open House at the end of this month. In the story below, written by Daniel Jones, [...]
What happens when artificial intelligence becomes smart enough to do more than answer questions, but still lacks the judgment to know when it is making a terrible decision? That was one of the most memorable themes from Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco, during his Ai4 keynote conversation last week. Patel compared today’s AI agents to teenagers: highly intelligent, fearless about consequences and occasionally capable of remarkably poor judgment. It was funny because it was instantly relatable, but it was also one of the clearest explanations I have heard of the risk facing companies as AI moves [...]
Clareity26 didn’t feel like a conference about change. It felt like a conference inside of change. More than 200 MLS executives, brokers, and industry leaders gathered in Tucson with a shared understanding that the rules are shifting in real time. From AI adoption and cybersecurity threats to private listings and legal pressure, the conversations weren’t about what might happen next. They were about what’s happening now. This was also the final Clareity Workshop after a 24-year run. That added weight to every discussion. This wasn’t just another event. It was a moment of reflection for an industry that is being [...]
Realtor associations across the country are facing sharper questions about their value proposition. Dues are rising, member counts are under pressure, and agents are weighing every dollar against the tangible benefits they receive. Advocacy, education, and networking remain important, but they don’t always feel immediate or indispensable to the average practitioner.
From Left to Right: Rajeev Sajja, Rajeev Sajja from Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, Michael Hickman from Seven Gables Real Estate, Matthew T. O’Connor from Terrie O’Connor Realtors, Kevin Greene from Cotality Real Estate Solutions, and Kevin Hawkins from WAV Group Communications Some of the best conversations happen behind closed doors. That's probably why one of my absolute favorite events for years has been the RISMedia CEO & Leadership Exchange. Unlike our industry’s bigger conferences, this gathering is more intimate. It attracts the top brokerage leaders, many of whom you rarely see at other events. What really [...]
$27,000,000,000. Nine zeros. That atmospheric number is Iceland's annual GNP. It's also the total homes sales volume real estate titan and Texas legend Ben Caballero of HomesUSA.com did as an individual sales agent over the last two decades (2004-2024). As a solo sales agent for every listing verified by the MLS, Ben averages over $1 billion in home sales annually. Last year, Ben did nearly $4 billion in home sales. Again, that's $4,000,000,000. That's greater than the combined annual GDP of Grenada and St. Lucia! Over seven thousand home sales: one year, one man Ben’s record-breaking billions are only eclipsed [...]
The Clareity25 MLS workshop celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale, uniting over 300 attendees under the theme "Dare Greatly." Highlights included a technology trends update from founder Gregg Larson, featuring insights from CES, and a legal panel discussing MLS rules and antitrust concerns.
With the removal of compensation from the MLS and so much uncertainty in real estate, MLSs must decide what components of their value proposition to focus on to step up their game and communicate the tangible benefits they deliver. MLSs must lean in to find AI tools that make the jobs of agents easier and more productive. They must also remember that all agents are not created equal. Providing a choice with MLS systems, the core tool offered by MLSs is one significant way to ensure you are meeting the diverse needs of your MLS customers. True MLS of Choice, however, isn’t [...]
In the real estate industry, we thrive on connections – between agents, clients, and data. For MLSs, seamless data sharing isn't just a convenience; it has become necessary to stay competitive as geographic borders disappear, creating an even more interconnected marketplace. Even with the reduction of MLSs across America, overlapping market disorder continues to plague data management for brokers spanning multiple markets. MLSs can better serve their broker clients by fulfilling the need for efficient tools to break down data silos and deliver access to broader listing pools. Traditional data-sharing models have often been a roadblock. Costly, time-intensive data-sharing connections [...]
