In an op-ed published earlier this month, Brian Donnellan, CEO of Bright MLS, referred to much of the recent industry upheaval as “noise.” Partnerships, consolidations, new entrants—all things that “sidestep” issues that directly affect real estate professionals, he argued.
Also in that op-ed, Donnellan revealed that Bright was striking a partnership with mega-brokerage Compass and tweaking its rules, weeks after two other large MLSs announced similar deals. And he announced that Bright is expanding a joint venture with listing management platform Occusell, adding Long & Foster and Howard Hanna to the initiative, part of a related push by real estate entities to control their data.
The MLS has long provided a steady foundation focused on cooperation, even as tech companies, self-described innovators and other outsiders have promised to reshape the industry. As this latest wave of turmoil shakes up real estate, will it be MLS partnerships, policies or priorities that have the largest impacts?
Speaking to RISMedia last week, the CEO of the nation’s largest MLS says he believes that “enormous change” is here for the industry, and the MLS system needs to be part of it.
“I honestly think that we can thread this needle where flexibility and transparency and people trying new things can still work together,” Donnellan says.
Where we stand
The issues of listing access, policy and control have swiftly become the most urgent question in real estate, with focus on the actions and policies of two behemoth companies—Zillow and Compass. While they jockey for business advantage, the actual battle lines are being drawn around MLSs.
According to court documents that are part of a recent lawsuit filed by Zillow (naming Compass and Chicago-based MLS MRED as defendants), Compass has asked several MLSs around the country to “enforce” certain rules that ostensibly favor its “seller choice” pre-market business practices, in exchange for preferred treatment and subsidized memberships. A Bright spokesperson confirmed the company had “clarified” those specific rules.
In another Compass-Zillow lawsuit (now dropped), court filings revealed that Zillow drew up extensive plans to either incentivize or pressure MLSs that withheld listings or allowed the propagation of private listing networks.
As nearly every big brokerage has also sought some sort of pre-market option—which generally needs to conform to local MLS rules—how the nation’s largest MLS responds will be closely watched.
“We still believe in cooperation. We think it’s going to look a little bit differently than it did in the past,” Donnellan says.
The art of the deal
The fact that Bright is partnering with Compass is something that is sure to turn heads. Earlier this year, the mega-brokerage publicly lauded Bright for rules that allow flexibility around pre-marketing, as it simultaneously derided other MLSs who have “doubled down” on restrictions.
Just over a year ago, Bright released a study that found that “one broker brand” accounted for more than a quarter of its “office exclusives,” and three companies made up 45% of those pre-market listings between 2024 and 2025.
How does Bright speak to the other brokerages in its footprint who don’t utilize pre-marketing, as Bright promises more “options” this summer pertaining to flexibility?
“Our goal is…to make sure that listings end up on the MLS,” Donnellan says, adding that the vast majority of listings that go through Bright’s “office exclusives” category do in fact, sell through the MLS.
The reality is that for the first time in recent history, the threat of listings bypassing the MLS is real. Compass CEO Robert Reffkin has made it clear that he will “fight” MLS rules that conflict with his company’s “seller choice” marketing, and a rush by portals to strike pre-market deals directly with brokerages opens another avenue (even as Zillow and others have largely promised to abide by local MLS policy).
Brian Schneider is Bright MLS’s general counsel. He repeats that Bright’s “primary goal” when formulating its rules is getting listings on the Bright platform to share with subscribers.
“And beyond that, it’s just creating an ordered, transparent framework—a consistent framework for how the information is collected and shared,” he said.
Nothing new
Schneider adds that while “a couple” brokerages are now pushing hard with private listings, those issues with “pocket listings” have been around “forever,” and Bright isn’t focused on that “small fraction” that aren’t on the MLS.
“As you think about pocket listings, office exclusives, limited marketing—we want brokers to be able to make choices about how they do their business,” he says.
More than that, Schneider says that there is still the threat of regulatory or legal intervention in the industry, and that the safe path for rule changes is less restriction.
“I think the litigation over the last 20 years has shown that anytime an MLS tries to tell brokers how to do business…ultimately the MLS loses out and brokers lose out,” he says.
But there is no real dispute that one brokerage is driving these changes nationwide, directly or indirectly—though notably, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services and HomeServices of America-owen Long & Foster are also consolidating their data feeds with Bright through its Occusell partnership.
“You started with the idea of, are we partnering with one broker? No, Bright is partnering with 100,000 agents and roughly 6,000 or 7,000 brokers that are part of its existing network. It just has had an opportunity now to work with three of the largest ones to consolidate their data feeds,” Schneider says. “If anyone else wants to work on that same project, Bright could take on all 6,000 today.”
Competition
Another way MLSs are changing is geographically. After decades of hundreds of small MLS systems mostly sticking to their own fiefdoms—or growing one acquisition or merger at a time—multiple MLSs have suddenly announced they are opening up their platforms to anyone across the country.
The Compass partnership with Bright syndicates the company’s exclusive listings on the Bright platform, and subsidizes membership in Bright—similar to what it did with MRED in Chicago and RealTracs in Tennessee (though Schneider says he wouldn’t describe Bright as a “national platform,” and Donnellan came out explicitly against the idea of a national MLS in his op-ed).
Why the sudden change? And what is the value to the MLS, or the appeal to agents and brokers in other parts of the country?
Asked if Bright and other MLSs are competing on rules—that is, offering real estate professionals operating in areas with more restrictive rules a platform with more flexibility—Donnellan claims Bright can offer more.
“There’s price, there’s functionality, there’s service, there’s other things that we do,” he says. “Rules are interesting and yes, if somebody didn’t like somebody’s rules and wanted to do that, great…(but) it’s more than just rules. I think it’s the whole thing. I think it’s the whole package of what your company does.”
Compass has clearly sought to leverage the national platform MRED launched for its own purposes, with Compass agents outside of the MRED region entering private listings on MRED’s platform (listings that Zillow subsequently banned, setting off a lawsuit). But from the MLS perspective, the choice to go national is much more nuanced, according to Donnellan and Schneider.
“The piece that I think hasn’t been said—in order for agents to actually use an MLS in some other market and use a system, it has to be able to deliver their services on a local level at a scale that makes sense for them to use that system,” Schneider says. “Unless you have access to everything in the neighborhood, you still have to use that local MLS, and that’s where the data consolidation work comes.”
“We’re focused locally. Can we do this nationally? Sure,” Donnellan adds. “But again, (there are) the diminishing returns of some of the problems you just stated.”
Federalism
Another challenge for MLSs—whether or not they seek to expand—is regulation. Around half a dozen states have recently passed laws restricting, limiting or otherwise clarifying how listings can be marketed.
Schneider says he expects essentially every state in Bright’s current footprint to do the same, but that these new laws aren’t a “major consideration” based on the specifics seen on other bills.
“We, Bright, are definitely monitoring those, and we’re trying to figure out, given the likelihood that all of the states in our market and elsewhere that we want to operate (in) are going to likely pass similar laws, we want to make sure those laws don’t undermine our business,” he says.
But all the bills passed or on track to pass so far (with the possible exception of stricter laws in Washington and Hawaii) offer “loopholes” that Schneider says brokers will work through. At the same time, Bright’s focus on flexibility means it can accommodate various versions of these new laws, as it expands the “granularity” of where listings are syndicated—including what information goes out to public websites or which websites they go to.
Then, Bright has to educate agents on what boxes they have to tick based on the laws in their state, Schneider says.
“We’re not there yet, but at least as I see it, it’s more about making sure that the agents and the brokers understand what the state law is telling them to do in terms of using our system,” he explains.
Fragmentation
As listings become more and more controlled, another potential major change is that buyers won’t be able to see all properties available in one place—something that MLS proponents have long touted as a crowning achievement of the American real estate system.
Schneider, however, disputes this premise, saying that at least over the last five years, portals are missing anywhere from 5% to 15% of listings.
Donnellan, for his part, says his views on the issue have changed.
“I used to be one that thought that when the market turned and people needed more exposure, we’d be right back to where we were before, where the MLS was key to everything and the distribution. I don’t know that that’s the case anymore,” he says.
Instead, Donnellan describes a more consolidated system that still offers transparency—maybe three to five websites that collectively have all the listings—which can still provide “enough transparency in order to protect both buyers and sellers.”
Going back to the MLS and the move to expand nationally, where do MLSs fit in this scenario? How do they compete in a world that is no longer adhering to the principle that all listings are shared equally with everyone?
Schneider notes that the MLSs that made “interesting announcements” largely have very different ownership structures and rules compared to “homogenous” NAR-controlled MLSs. Competition and “differentiation” by these entities is going to “come to the forefront,” he predicts.
Donnellan points to Bright’s systems and supports—everything from analytics to listing management to tech—as things that currently “may or may not” help an agent compete in a marketplace outside their local MLSs footprint, for now.
“I don’t think that brokers and agents have left (their local MLS) because of the products or the service or anything like that, but I think they will consider doing that now,” he says.
