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Each week on The Download, Inman’s Christy Murdock takes a deeper look at the top-read stories of the week to give you what you’ll need to meet Monday head-on. This week: It seems everyone’s talking about Clear Cooperation these days. Is the policy a power grab from NAR and the MLSs or a sincere effort to level the playing field for buyers?
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, real estate has a new controversy in store. This time, everyone’s fretting over the National Association of Realtors’ Clear Cooperation Policy and lining up on opposing sides to argue its merits and deficiencies.
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Adopted in 2019, Clear Cooperation was presented as an effort to improve transparency and ensure that brokerages didn’t hoard pocket listings to the detriment of consumer choice — with consumers, in this case, understood to mean buyers. In the years since, the policy has repeatedly come under fire as overly restrictive and impinging on seller options in determining how and when their homes would hit the open market.
Now, with NAR increasingly coming under scrutiny and with brokerages and MLSs looking for new ways to define their value and effectiveness, if some industry leaders have their way, Clear Cooperation may be headed to the chopping block.
Reffkin: NAR’s Clear Cooperation breaks ethics code, state laws by Robert Reffkin
This week, Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin weighed in with his assessment of Clear Cooperation, arguing that its intended benefits “pale compared to the restrictions it places on homeowners’ consumer choice and an agent’s obligation to uphold NAR’s Code of Ethics and state laws.”
“By complying blindly with the Clear Cooperation Policy, Realtors risk perpetuating policies that may do more harm than good, and therefore, it is an ethical imperative to challenge such policies in pursuit of a practice that truly aligns with our professional duty to serve our clients,” Reffkin writes.
Whatever your take on Clear Cooperation, it’s essential to understand both sides of real estate’s biggest debates so that you can adapt to changes if and when they come.
Pulse: Why do you (or don’t you) want to see Clear Cooperation repealed?
From legal challenges to callouts in the media, it seems that everyone is talking about Clear Cooperation and whether it’s time to put the controversial policy on ice. Weigh in with this week’s Pulse survey.
EXTRA: Anywhere joins push to reform NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy
In the meantime, maintaining an arsenal of strategies and best practices for working with sellers and buyers will ensure that no matter what new practices and rules manifest themselves, you’ll always have plenty of ways to serve your clients.
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Don’t facilitate source of income discrimination by
Don’t discourage your sellers from talking to FHA, VA, USDA or DPA buyers, fair housing advocate Dr. Lee Davenport writes. Help facilitate both a timely sale and greater affordability.
Christy Murdock is a writer, coach and consultant and the owner of Writing Real Estate. Connect with Writing Real Estate on Instagram and subscribe to the weekly roundup, The Ketchup.
