Starting May 1, non-REALTORS® in Rhode Island will be able to access the State-Wide Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
Philip Tedesco—CEO of the Rhode Island Association of REALTORS® (RIAR) and the Rhode Island State-Wide Multiple Listing Service (MLS)—says that this new policy change came about when the MLS discussed increasing its fees for the first time in 20 years.
A for-profit subsidiary owned by the RIAR, the State-Wide MLS has not updated its fees since 2005, according to Tedesco. The new fee structure will remain the same whether the subscriber is a licensee or a REALTOR®.
“We discussed separate levels of access, which could then potentially support separate fees, but we decided to give the same level of access because State-Wide MLS is a cooperative. It’s not a listing platform, so it relies on trust and transparency within the marketplace,” said Tedesco. “After a long discussion, we decided that the collective consumers of MLS benefit from the expanded access and increased information for its entire user base. So we didn’t really want to play games—it’s all about transparency in the transaction, and we thought separate levels of access might question that.”
Just a month ago, Phoenix REALTORS® and the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reached an agreement—following a lengthy legal dispute—based on a specific program for non-REALTORS® to access the MLS (and some other benefits).
Given the legal skirmish over the technicalities of the program, Tedesco claimed that Phoenix REALTORS® went about the program “all wrong.”
“Phoenix is a part of a regional MLS and they have the ability to wholesale the MLS access to members,” he said. “They created a category of membership within the REALTOR® organization to serve non-members. So I think, structurally, they went about it entirely incorrectly.”
Since Rhode Island’s State-Wide MLS is a “completely separate corporation” from the RIAR, there will be no changes regarding RIAR’s REALTOR® benefits offering—besides the updated fees for the MLS and the ability for licensees to access it without the REALTOR® requirement, says Tedesco.
He added that there were no formal discussions with NAR regarding the changes, but that he mentioned the decision “in passing” to NAR President Kevin Sears while at a conference recently.
“I told him some of the things that we were doing…I was discussing it from the perspective of avoiding future liability, doing the right thing for the right reason. We were in no way asking permission or finding out if it was acceptable to them,” Tedesco said. “I’m actually, I’m on my way to national meetings the week after next, and I’m curious to see if it turns into a topic of discussion.”
The 7,000-plus State-Wide MLS subscribers were notified of the changes recently.
“We’re getting a lot of questions. Because the way it will work, I mean, if it’s a licensee—it still needs to be the entire office. If the broker’s going to affiliate with the MLS, it’s not just one individual within and then everybody putting their listings through that one subscription,” Tedesco clarified. “It will be them having the ability to sign up for the MLS, just with no REALTOR® association membership in a mutually exclusive separate decision. We’re just not tying the two in any way—either in pricing or in access anymore.”
The Austin Board of REALTORS®’ Unlock MLS also recently announced its offering for non-REALTOR® subscriptions starting June 1. More information—on how brokers can set up an MLS for their office and how agents can update their subscription status—will be available April 1, according to its website.
This is becoming increasingly common, Tedesco shared.
“The latest stat I just saw was that 38% of REALTOR®-owned MLSs have opened up the MLS to licensees,” he added. “That’s an interesting number because—and I have no idea what the pricing may or may not be—just removing that required relationship—I think a lot of folks are looking at. And, I think it’s from an antitrust perspective, related to a lot of things that recently happened.”
The State-Wide MLS subscriber fees will also have a few increases come May 1, ranging from a $15 monthly admin access code to a $115 team code activation license fee.
