Robert Reffkin Compares The Future Of Listings To Netflix Video Streaming

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Amid a push to end the polarizing Clear Cooperation rule, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin on Wednesday argued during an earnings call that the future of real estate listings should look like today’s video streaming landscape.

“I’d love to be able to only go on Netflix and be able to see any TV show I want,” Reffkin said. “But that’s just not the world. In a free and fair world there’s something called competition. And different companies come in and create different offerings. And so I’ve got to go to Netflix for one place, Disney+ for another.”

In addition to discussing earnings on the third-quarter call, Reffkin also spoke out about Clear Cooperation, which he and his company have been vocal about wanting to repeal. The rule, from the National Association of Realtors, requires agents to put their listings into their NAR-affiliated MLS within a day of initiating marketing efforts for those properties.

Reffkin said during the call that the rule infringes on the rights of homeowners to market their homes as they see fit, and that it infuriates agents.

The comments about streaming platforms came late in the call. After mentioning platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV, Reffkin painted a similar picture for the future of real estate listings.

“I think in the future of real estate at some point in this country, people will come to Compass to find listings, they’ll go to the MLS to find listings, they’ll go to one or two aggregators to find listings,” he said. “But it’s not going to be unlike almost any other product you want to buy.”

The question that prompted the comments came from an analyst who wanted to know what the real estate industry might look like in a post-Clear Cooperation world.

Reffkin and his company have been open about wanting to build up the unique inventory they offer on their platform, framing it — including during Wednesday’s earnings call — as a competitive advantage. And they have been among the most vocal proponents of ending Clear Cooperation, though other members of the industry also want to get rid of the rule.

“Listing inventory remains the lifeblood of the residential real estate marketplace,” Reffkin said during the call. “At Compass, we already have a depth of inventory in many of our local markets that is unmatched.”

Still other prominent members of the industry have argued in favor of keeping Clear Cooperation. It is a highly polarizing issue.

But Reffkin’s video streaming analogy is perhaps the clearest explanation yet of how he envisions the Clear Cooperation dust settling over the long term.

During the call, Reffkin also acknowledged that one of the counterarguments to his vision is that it would turn the U.S. market into something like what exists in other countries, many of which lack MLSs. The claim, Reffkin said, is that in the world he described “it’ll be so hard to find the inventory.” But he argued that other countries are less fragmented than is popularly believed.

“By the way in some of these other countries it’s not as hard as it used to be 10 years ago or 15 years ago,” he said during the call. “It’s really gravitated to just one or two places.”

Reffkin also said during the call that “I do believe in a strong MLS.”

Still, the fragmentation of the video streaming landscape is the source of persistent gripes from consumers. News articles have noted that such fragmentation is leading to the return of bundling, as well as general frustration, and social media is filled with complaints from people who can’t find what they want on the various platforms.

How real estate might avoid such situations remains to be seen.

Either way, though, Reffkin predicted that Clear Cooperation will eventually go away. Though Compass and others have asked NAR to get rid of the rule, Reffkin believes the courts will ultimately nix it even if the industry itself does not. And as that process plays out, Reffkin said that Compass will work to protect and maximize the value of consumers’ homes.

“Compass will be known as the defenders of homeowner value, the defenders of homeowner choice,” he said. “Your home, your choice.”

Email Jim Dalrymple II