Above, Art Carter
As the Clear Cooperation Policy became a nexus of controversy and debate last year, with a plethora of brokers, CEOs and everyday agents across the country weighing in, maybe more notable than any of the folks who spoke out in favor (or against) the policy were those who didn’t say anything at all.
One notable voice that wasn’t heard was that of Art Carter, CEO of CRMLS—the largest multiple listing service in the country. As brokers and CEOs publicly sparred over the future of Clear Cooperation through op-eds, social media posts and petitions, Carter declined to join in the back-and-forth, with representatives from CRMLS previously telling RISMedia that CRMLS was having its own internal meetings to discuss the policy.
Here in 2025, as the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) is claiming the issue of Clear Cooperation will be “settled” soon, Carter and his mega-MLS are hoping to add some nuance to the discussion.
“(Clear Cooperation) was a flawed policy,” Carter says, “and it deserves some rethinking and some changes. But to get rid of the underlying mandatory submission is, in our minds, a complete mistake.”
Against the backdrop of the “for or against” framing of the debate, Carter wants to talk not just about the policy as it exists now, but about its purpose, its flaws and its effects—from the legal liabilities to the consumer benefits.
Before that, however, CRMLS is setting the record straight on why it is speaking out now, and what the last several months of debate and pressure have looked like. In a nine-page open letter to the industry published last month, Carter revealed that “some brokers” who want the policy repealed have threatened to sue CRMLS in an attempt to force changes.
Going through individual demands that these brokerages allegedly made—including unilaterally “revoking” Clear Cooperation and establishing new designations to limit the accessibility or data of listings—Carter wrote that CRMLS will continue to stand behind “Mandatory Cooperation Rules” and won’t “implement rules which favor one business model over another.”
“Simply put, properties and their data belong on the MLS for everyone to see to ensure equal cooperation among brokers,” Carter wrote.
Under pressure
Besides leading the nation’s largest MLS, there is another reason Carter can speak more authoritatively on Clear Cooperation—specifically from the legal liability side.
Just over a year ago, CRMLS (along with two other large MLSs) settled a major antitrust lawsuit filed by a listing service startup which had claimed Clear Cooperation was designed to stamp out competition. While the terms of that settlement have not been disclosed, Carter revealed that the deal did not involve any policy changes.
“As much as people want to point to (Clear Cooperation) and say, ‘You are opening yourself up to more litigation,’ it is honestly our opinion that you’re opening yourself up to litigation from buyers now, going down this road (of repealing Clear Cooperation),” he says.
Beyond that, Carter points out that there is “heightened scrutiny” right now on real estate, but also argues that shouldn’t necessarily dictate what policy choices are made.
“Just because something may lead to a lawsuit doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do,” he claims.
Critics both inside and outside the industry have also focused on what they characterize as the overall limiting effect of Clear Cooperation. At its core, the policy requires that listings are submitted to an NAR-affiliated MLS, adhering to the rules of that MLS and effectively preventing sellers and buyers from pursuing alternative methods to list or find properties. Buyers in particular, who nearly always start their home search on the portal websites, are likely to question why properties need to be posted on the MLS.
Carter responds to these criticisms by pointing out that the MLS provides something that hopefully consumers understand is necessary to ensure a fair marketplace—something he calls “community standards.”
“There are rules in place to make sure that brokers and agents are doing things the right way, and we actively make sure that our brokers and agents are adhering to those community standards,” he says.
People who want the portals to serve as a conduit for listing and transactions are misunderstanding how fundamentally different the MLS is—as a “broker cooperative,” Carter says—in terms of mission and purpose.
“The portals are never going to apply standards, community standards to the content that they get,” Carter says. “It is not in their best interest. But the MLS does that, and it’s very pro-consumer in that our rules and our regulations are there really to safeguard the consumer and what it is that they’re seeing and how they’re seeing it, and the reliability of the data that’s being put in front of them.”
But making that fully mandatory is still a bridge too far for many. Critics of the policy have said that while they support and appreciate the MLS, it is up to the individual agent and seller to decide when and how to utilize that tool.
Carter calls those arguments “disingenuous,” claiming that mandatory submission rules—and Clear Cooperation in particular—allow for that kind of flexibility without compromising the foundation of the “open marketplace” of the MLS.
“There are some sellers that want to limit that distribution, (they) have very specific reasons from a luxury standpoint, from a privacy standpoint, and they’ve got their options to do that,” he says.
In the letter, Carter claims that anyone who wants to keep a property off the MLS can use non-exclusive listing agreements, with specific clauses ensuring that the listing agent gets paid for services or for an accepted offer, to effectively navigate that scenario.
“A basic understanding of real estate contract law, combined with the ability to address the specific needs of sellers that may not require their property to be listed in the MLS, is fully supported under the existing CRMLS rules, policies, and available technology,” he wrote.
“Mandatory submission’”
While saying that he falls in the category of “reform” Clear Cooperation rather than repeal or reaffirm it, Carter makes it clear that he strongly supports the principles that undergird the policy, and that the current debate needs to focus on that aforementioned “mandatory submission” principle.
“There’s so much discussion about getting rid of mandatory submission that I just don’t think people are really considering what that means—what that means for brokers, what it means for agents and what it means for the consumer,” he said.
In the paper, Carter goes through what he claims are three “demands” made by brokers who don’t like the policy, and why CRMLS believes they would be bad for the industry.
The first is ending Clear Cooperation, which Carter writes for multiple reasons is something CRMLS won’t do.
“Without (Clear Cooperation), anti-competitive practices could proliferate. If listings were all to remain hidden within select brokerages, we’d be creating an uneven playing field that limits consumer choice, distorts market fairness, and could benefit large players in the market to the detriment of smaller businesses,” he said.
The second is to create a “new status” for listings that would conceal property details like days on market. CRMLS equates this request to “intentionally misrepresent(ing) or withhold(ing) critical information.”
“If showings are permitted for a Coming Soon listing, what would distinguish the Coming Soon status from an Active status? This request would likely result in misrepresentations of the actual number of days it took for a listing agent to sell a property,” Carter wrote.
Additionally, MLSs who go through with this kind of change open themselves up to “significant liability,” as buyers who feel they were misled about something like “days on market” can sue. And simultaneously, sellers might push back on listing agents who inaccurately claim to sell properties faster based on these other listing statuses.
Things like days on market and price drops provide vital information for both sides of a transaction, and allowing agents to manipulate them “is antithetical to professionalism and a shameful practice that the industry as a whole is responsible to stop.”
The third demand is to create a separate, private listing network within CRMLS that only subscribers can see, which would serve to “withhold available properties from unrepresented consumers,” CRMLS claimed.
“Such a system would clearly disadvantage consumers who choose to not work with a real estate agent, as they would have no access to the listed inventory,” Carter wrote. “The case of an MLS making rules that force consumers to use a real estate agent to see properties that are for sale will be extensively litigated, and implementing such a policy could expose CRMLS to significant antitrust liability.”
Carter points to “one head of a very large brokerage” who has explicitly said that he wants more consumers to come to his website. Although he didn’t name names, Robert Reffkin, CEO of Compass and a prominent critic of Clear Cooperation, previously said that he is hoping to build the company’s exclusive listing inventory.
“That’s not necessarily the experience that (the consumer) wants. It is not a complete experience for the consumer, and something that just doesn’t make sense,” Carter argues.
At the same time, Carter acknowledges there are flaws in the Clear Cooperation Policy. In his letter, he wrote that a “common complaint” received by CRMLS has focused on the “burdensome” compliance requirements, adding that he will advocate for “continuous improvements and amendments to address any limitations that may arise.”
Asked about the two-way conversation with members about Clear Cooperation—whether it works, how it works and educating on its importance—Carter reflects on the initial implementation of the policy, and notes that CRMLS has “tweaked” Clear Cooperation already over the last four-plus years.
And while he is still tempered in his praise of Clear Cooperation specifically, Carter points to its immediate effects back in 2020 as evidence of the positives created by “mandatory submission.”
“The Clear Cooperation Policy…meant 750 new listings a month that were added into our system that would’ve not been exposed under the previous way that we were doing things,” he says. “Those are listings that become freely distributed and freely available to the consumer, and that I think was an important part of that policy.”
