The concept of the MLS creates a strange contradiction for brokers who are both competing with one another, yet sharing inventory by way of compensation and cooperation.
In the middle of it all is CMLS, challenged with refereeing any acrimony between brokers and MLSs, promoting best practices and supporting its membership of 203 MLS providers representing 1.2 million subscribers.
At the helm is Denee Evans, the CEO of this premiere organization dedicated to leading the MLS industry in North America.
Evans is a self-proclaimed small-town girl who grew up in Nevada, earning a degree in finance with a specialization in real estate from University of Nevada, Los Vegas. She has always been involved in the industry in some form, doing flips, additions, as well as scrape-and-builds.
Evans spent more than a decade in retail banking, where she dealt with home equity and mortgage loans. Prior to her role with CMLS, Evans was the executive director for EnergyFit Nevada, a nonprofit working to make homes more energy efficient.
Through EnergyFit’s efforts to add sustainability information to the MLS, she learned about the opening for CMLS CEO and threw her hat into the ring.
In this podcast, Greg Robertson asks Evans the tough questions around how to address MLSs that don’t comply with best practices, the best way for CMLS to support its members and the organization’s partnership with the National Association of Realtors.
Evans explains the “blessing and the curse” of taking on the role of CEO as an outsider in the MLS industry and the benefit for consumers when organized real estate’s stakeholders collaborate.
Listen in and learn about the CMLS initiative to create an interactive tool that would assist MLSs in developing a plan to implement best practices.
What’s discussed:
- How Evans’s background in banking informs her understanding of real estate
- The intense interview process she experienced to become CEO of CMLS
- The blessing and the curse of being an MLS outsider
- Evans’s take on the “us versus them” mentality of industry stakeholders
- The dichotomy around brokers competing, yet sharing inventory
- The challenge for MLS execs to make diverse stakeholders happy
- The benefit for consumers when stakeholders cooperate
- Evans’s role as an advocate for MLS execs
- Evans’s contention that pain points exist in MLSs of all sizes
- The “wall of shame” identifying who hasn’t complied with CMLS best practices
- Robertson’s proposal to offer free CMLS memberships to non-compliant MLSs
- CMLS’s plans to create a best practices interactive tool
- Developed at last CMLS strategic planning session
- Could grow into certification necessary for membership
- How CMLS should provide support to its members
- Education versus leadership/advocacy
- Study of industry initiatives to identify needs (Upstream)
- The controversy around CMLS’s partnership with NAR
- CMLS members assigned seats on NAR committees
- Speak as national voice for CMLS
Learn more about The Council of Multiple Listing Services, or connect with Denee Evans on LinkedIn or Twitter.
