Eales said the U.S. model of cooperation remains the gold standard — but declined to take a stance on NAR’s policy. “Beware what you wish for,” he said on Wednesday at Inman Connect Austin.
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Without taking a firm stance on what the industry should do with its Clear Cooperation Policy, Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales delivered a clear warning at Inman Connect Austin on Wednesday: be careful.
The portal executive spoke with Inman founder Brad Inman in front of an audience of hundreds of real estate professionals, a majority of whom had recently made clear they were in favor of repealing the policy that requires Realtors to put a listing in their multiple listing service within a day of marketing a property.
He offered a more tempered view on what he thought should be done with the policy and avoided taking a side. Instead, he said that policies can and should change over time and said several times that he believed the American real estate model to be superior to markets in other countries that don’t provide broad and inexpensive access to listings via MLSs.
“With all of these policies, I’m sure that there are ways to evolve them as times change, and I don’t think any policy should be set in stone forever,” Eales told Inman on stage.
Eales’ appearance made clear that the debate over the policy is at the forefront of the industry at the moment. A committee with the National Association of Realtors is debating whether to keep, change or repeal the policy, which has been in effect since 2020.
Realtor.com had previously made clear that it favors the existing setup that allows for broad access to listings and has stopped short of the full-throated support of the existing policy that Redfin has offered.
Eales instead urged caution among industry players who will ultimately decide what to do with the policy.
“We’ve got to be careful that we don’t swing the pendulum from one end of the spectrum to the other, and we consider the reasons why policies like that came into effect in the first instance,” he said.
Instead, Eales said, agents and sellers in Australia who want their listings to be seen have to advertise on REA, the sister company and shareholder of Realtor.com.
“It’s good to reflect on a lot of the advantages that the American market has that aren’t enjoyed more broadly in the world. The Australian market doesn’t have the MLS system,” Eales said.
He recalled the decision that was made when Realtor.com was founded 26 years ago to allow agents to view listings without requiring a subscription, which he said was different from the Australian model.
“In the American model, alternatively, because of cooperation — be it the Clear Cooperation Policy specifically or broader cooperation in the industry — those listings are free,” he said. “The sellers don’t pay for it, buyers get access to the full market and transparency.”
Eales called his company “the No. 2 portal in this country and growing market share,” and said Realtor.com and Zillow would benefit if the U.S. market became more like the Australian market.
“But I think that that’s completely against the DNA of our brand,” he said.
So as the industry gears up for a final decision on the policy, Eales made his message clear.
“Beware what you wish for,” he said.
Email Taylor Anderson
