Above: HomeServices of America CEO Chris Kelly at RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange Event in 2025.
Minnesota-based brokerage giant HomeServices of America has announced it is launching a “listing data interface” that will replace MLS entry with a “controlled, brokerage-level environment,” while still promising full support and compliance with local MLSs.
Part of a “strategic partnership” with Cotality, the real estate data and analytics firm formerly known as CoreLogic, the platform will be known as BLX, with HomeServices CEO Chris Kelly telling RISMedia that the company wants to stay ahead of rapid changes happening in the MLS industry.
“With the way that that landscape is shifting, MLSs are starting to think fairly independently for themselves over the last couple of weeks and that’s probably not going to change,” Kelly says. “We thought it was best that we would put all of our own data, start with it all together and then distribute it out to MLSs and portals and other channels we deem appropriate.”
Amid major consolidations and power moves—many driven by one of HomeService’s chief brokerage competitors, Compass—the question of who will control listing data and platforms is clearly something real estate leaders are scrambling to figure out. With nearly every big brokerage jumping into some kind of pre-market partnership with portals, and MLSs partnering with Compass to expand into national platforms, Kelly acknowledges that HomeServices wants to hold onto its own data.
“With this whole idea around data aggregation and data distribution, we felt it was appropriate to be proactive at this moment to have all of our data in a more centralized repository,” he says. “It’s not really reactionary or knee jerk to any specific thing that’s happened over the last 30 days. But the things that have happened over the last three days certainly have supported and reinforced why we’re doing it, which is the longstanding, multi-decade process of taking our individual listings one by one, putting them into the 243 MLSs that we’re a part of, they aggregate it and give it back to us.”
HomeServices of America currently operates across hundreds of MLS relationships nationwide, where listing content is typically entered into local systems before being redistributed. BLX is designed to invert that model, according to the company, establishing a controlled, brokerage-level environment for listing entry while preserving MLSs as a “foundational component” of the broader ecosystem.
Notably, Cotality is one of the leading providers of technology for MLSs, with the company claiming that three out of four transactions in North America are “supported” in some way by its products.
In a statement, SVP of HomeServices Lacey Conway said that MLSs “remain central to how the industry functions, and that will not change.”
“BLX is about streamlining the entry and flow of listing data so it is more consistent and more usable across platforms,” she said “We believe that benefits everyone in the ecosystem—from brokerages and MLSs to agents and ultimately consumers.”
Getting practical
At the operational level, that means a single point of entry for HomeServices brokerages, allowing agents and administrative teams to input property data once and distribute it across MLSs, consumer platforms and other approved destinations. The platform is designed to improve consistency, reduce duplication and strengthen data integrity, while maintaining full compliance with MLS rules and standards, according to HomeServices.
As MLS fragmentation persists across the U.S. housing markets, Kelly says that BLX will ultimately improve consistency and streamline distribution across brokerage and consumer platforms.
“For us it’s all about stability and continuity for our agents,” he says. “So if that landscape started to shift under the current model too quickly, our biggest concern is that we’d have to be very reactionary and we’d have to scramble in order to make sure that there was not a disruption on the distribution of our listing content on behalf of our agents to consumers.
“The idea behind it is to be proactive so that no matter what changes, whether we stay at 450 MLSs across the country or it gets consolidated down to 100 or whatever may come, we’ll be in a position to be able to respond and act appropriately within the marketplace. Because anyone who’s trying to tell you exactly what the world’s going to look like a year from now or three years from now doesn’t know, and we don’t either. But we feel like that alone is a reason to make sure we’re being very proactive in the protection and the aggregation of our own listing content so that we’re positioned no matter what happens in the marketplace.”
Kelly stressed that there are multiple benefits as far as inverting the standard model where listing content is entered into local systems before being redistributed.
“There are some very obvious surface level (benefits),” he said. “We have many markets where we belong to multiple MLSs where agents and brokerages have to dual entry. So this would solve that problem. Some of the other advantages as well are that by having all of that data aggregated from the start, we can be much more responsive and create a much better forecast and give much better analytical insights to our agents and consumers based on what we’re seeing within that data.
“So part of it is to be very responsive because we’re also a full-service brokerage. We have insurance, mortgage and title. That data also provides amazing insights for our insurance operations and our mortgage operations so that from the start we can better place the right kind of products that a consumer would particularly need because we can get the insights from that data.”
Regarding how the BLX platform gives HomeServices a competitive edge, Kelly was succinct.
“It really comes back to the whole idea that things are changing quickly,” he said. “The things that are happening today were not predicted a year ago so the idea of being able to predict what’s going to happen a year from now is kind of a fool’s errand. What we’re trying to do and why we think this is the right move for us right now is that it positions us to not have to be knee-jerk reactionary to what so and so is doing across the street. Whether that’s another brokerage, another portal, another MLS, whatever’s happening, we’ll be in a position to make sure that we’re taking care of our agents and consumers and the continuity of that listing content.”
News follows news
The partnership follows closely on the heels of Chicago-based MLS Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) announcing a seemingly transformative nationwide expansion of its platform (and private network), aiming to give agents across the country access to an MLS-backed platform for so-called “pre-marketed” properties as the industry rapidly shifts toward these new options.
Compass International Holdings (which now includes the Anywhere brands and several other brokerages) said it was committed to sharing its Coming Soon and Private Exclusives on this new platform, as well as subsidizing the cost of the first 100,000 agents who join.
Also recently, building on a newly established company structure designed to accelerate innovation and support nationwide growth, Realtracs—Tennessee’s largest MLS, supporting 19,000-plus professionals across six states—announced a major expansion with the introduction of national coverage through new brokerage participation, calling the move a “significant step forward in the next evolution of MLS platforms built to support broker, agent and client choice.”
BLX platform plusses
The BLX platform is intended to integrate with existing workflows, allowing agents to continue entering listing data in a familiar way, with minimal disruption or additional training required.
From a data and infrastructure standpoint, the initiative also reflects the capabilities of Cotality, a provider of property data, analytics and technology solutions used across the residential real estate industry. Formerly known as CoreLogic, the company rebranded in 2025 as Cotality to reflect its expanded focus on delivering integrated data solutions across the property lifecycle.
“We are honored to partner with HomeServices of America to bring the transformative Cotality Broker Listing ExchangeTM solution to their world-class network,” said Pat Dodd, CEO of Cotality. “This collaboration is about more than technology; it is about empowering agents and simplifying the listing process at its source. Together, we’re creating a more transparent experience that benefits the entire real estate ecosystem, from our MLS partners to the home buyers and sellers who rely on the expertise of their agents.”
Beyond operational efficiency, BLX is expected to enable more real-time insights into pricing trends, market dynamics and listing performance, providing agents and clients with enhanced decision-making tools.
The initial rollout of BLX is expected to begin in the next three to six months, with broader expansion planned in coordination with MLS partners nationwide.
