Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Hive MLS grows

West Metro Board of REALTORS joins Hive MLS as its 20th Member

“West Metro joining Hive is a powerful example of what our cooperative model is all about,” said Daniel Jones, CEO of Hive MLS. “They share in our belief in the strength of community, where associations gain influence by working together, the value of collaboration across markets to support brokers and agents with better tools, and the importance of connectivity through modern systems and seamless data exchange. We look forward to West Metro helping to strengthen our Hive.”

Interesting model. One thing I’m looking forward to about MLS Reset is getting a chance to learning more from Daniel and others on their unique business models.

Bright MLS appoints first Chief AI Officer, Rajeev Sajja.

Bright MLS Appoints Rajeev Sajja as First Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer

“AI can no longer be a feature on the side of the MLS; it has to be built into the core of how we manage listings, deliver insights, and support our subscribers’ businesses,” said Brian Donnellan, Bright MLS President & CEO. “Rajeev brings a rare combination of deep real estate experience and technology vision to this new role that will help us turn AI into real, everyday advantages for the professionals who rely on Bright.” 

Rajeev and I were both speakers at a recent Bright MLS board of directors meeting so I got to see him speak live. Super smart and I Ioved his presentation. As Brian mentioned he has the perfect mix of experience for this role. Congrats Rajeev!

Jack Miller on Lists, Trends, Marketplaces and CoStar.

Overview

Rob and Greg are joined by Jack Miller (President & CEO of T3 Sixty) for a wide-ranging discussion on the SP 200, changes to T3’s ranking methodology, brokerage business models, agent economics, consolidation, and the future of the MLS as a comprehensive marketplace.

Key Takeaways

  • SP 200 methodology update: Rankings now factor in future impact, not just past performance, leading to notable shifts in the Top 10.
  • Agent economics by model: Traditional brokerages show higher average agent income, while fee-based and capped models emphasize unit economics.
  • Brokerage costs: The critical metric is cost per transaction and cost per agent—not just GAAP net income.
  • Teams vs. platforms: High-producing agents increasingly partner with platforms (Compass, Place, Side) instead of building large internal teams.
  • MLS under pressure: Preserving a comprehensive marketplace is the key challenge as private and delayed listings increase.
  • Consolidation continues: Industry consolidation is ongoing, but not near an end-state oligopoly.
  • Portals vs. brokerages: Compass and Zillow are shaping industry direction in different ways, with contrasting strengths and strategies.

Links

Consulting

Trends

Industry Rankings

Sp200 Rankings

Industry News

Connect with Rob and Greg

Rob’s Website 

Greg’s Website 

Watch us on YouTube

Our Sponsors:

Cotality 

Notorious VIP

The Giant Steps Job Board 

Production and Editing Services by Sunbound Studios

Inside Editora: Julie Drazen’s No-Fluff Approach to Real Estate Video

Overview

Greg Robertson sits down with Julie Drazen, founder of Editora, to talk about her background in film and commercial editing and how that experience led to building a fast, opinionated video-editing platform for real estate agents. Julie explains how Editora uses AI as a behind-the-scenes tool (not a replacement for craft), why simplicity and taste matter in listing videos, and how the product is designed to save agents time while keeping branding consistent across brokerages. 

Key Takeaways

  • Julie’s career in commercial editing and documentary filmmaking shaped Editora’s focus on storytelling, pacing, and taste.
  • Editora automates listing videos from professional photos, handling shot selection, order, scripts, and voiceover with AI assistance.
  • The platform prioritizes simplicity: fewer choices, consistent branding, and no flashy transitions or gimmicks.
  • Agents can create videos quickly on desktop or mobile, including status updates like “just listed,” “under contract,” and “sold.”
  • Pricing tiers launch February 1, with a free first listing video and scalable options for solo agents, teams, and brokerages.

Links

Editora

AppStore Link 

Julie’s LinkedIn

Contact Julie: julie@editora.ai

Sponsors

Aligned Showings — MLS-owned showing software built to simplify scheduling, improve communication, and keep MLS data where it belongs.

Giant Steps Job Board – Built for organized real estate and PropTech, not generic tech bros and recruiters who don’t know what an MLS is.

Production and editing services by:

Sunbound Studios

The Participation Award

Third Point Sends Letter to Board of Directors of CoStar Group

We thought then, as we do now, that the Company’s anemic performance can be ascribed entirely to the misallocation of billions of dollars into Homes.com, overseen by a feckless board of directors that has failed to protect shareholders from Mr. Florance’s quixotic quest while rewarding him with exorbitant pay packages. Like an elementary school child who wins a prize even for finishing last, Mr. Florance’s bonuses are perhaps the costliest “Participation Award” our firm has witnessed.

This guy, Dan Loeb, doesn’t do subtle.

I don’t know all the players but it looks like Third Point ( I’m guessing a hedge fund) is a huge investor and there was some sort of “standstill agreement” with CoStar that expired at midnight. And these guys at the hedge fund came out swinging this morning with a letter that reads like a controlled demolition. Loeb is nominating a slate of directors to replace the majority of the board, which he describes as “feckless” and “supine enablers” of Andy Florance’s Homes.com obsession( a.k.a. ZDS –Zillow Derangement Syndrome).

More from the letter:

The Company’s plan to build a dominant online classifieds business in the U.S. RRE industry was deeply flawed, with structural problems affecting both sides of management’s proposed two-sided marketplace. First, customer demand was dominated by deeply entrenched competitors with strong brands and ample resources. Second, and even more damaging, the Company lacked meaningful differentiation in its supply of properties due to the presence of MLS’s freely syndicated listings. While these problems were immediately obvious to any informed observer, management and the board either ignored or failed to understand them.

Ouch, that’s going to leave a mark. He’s basically saying, we liked the monopoly we owned before. We don’t believe nor did we ever believe you could establish a monopoly in residential real estate.

So CoStar has sunk roughly $3 billion into U.S. residential real estate over five years. The return? About $60 million in revenue last year. Meanwhile, Florance received $37 million in compensation despite the stock dropping 27% over five years while the S&P 500 returned 94%. No bueno according the Mr. Loeb.

Loeb’s description of Florance’s bonus as the “costliest Participation Award” his firm has ever witnessed is the kind of line that ends up in business school case studies — which, he helpfully notes, is exactly where CoStar’s residential strategy belongs.

But I’m not so sure. I keep thinking of that conversation attributed to Masayoshi Son (CEO of SoftBank) when he was talking to Adam Neumann of WeWork.

Masayoshi Son: In a fight, who wins — the smart guy or the crazy guy?

Adam Neumann: The crazy guy of course.

Masayoshi Son: Correct, but you are not crazy enough.

I’m not sure I would ever bet against Andy Florance. Isn’t “quixotic” just another word for crazy?

But it sounds like Third Point wants CoStar out of the residential real estate (RRE) business. So let’s pull on that thread a little bit.

Who do they sell it to?

Yup, you guessed it…Compass. And Reffkin is for sure crazy enough!

Aligned Showings [Sponsor]

Thanks to Aligned Showings for supporting Vendor Alley this month.

Aligned Showings is a modern showing and scheduling platform built to serve agents, teams, and MLSs directly. It handles appointment booking, confirmations, messaging, feedback, and notifications — all in a clean, intuitive interface. Aligned Showings is one of the most successful MLS led technology solutions in the industry.

They just wrapped up 2025 and the numbers caught my eye:

  • 2.3 million approved showings in 2025
  • 4.6 million approved showings to date
  • 792,000+ feedback responses collected
  • 24,888 average daily user sessions

Fun stat: Showings are scheduled on average 1 day, 3 hours, and 28 minutes in advance. (Their busiest day? April 4th. Slowest? Christmas. Sounds about right.)

They also shipped a ton of product this year — route planning for approved showings, calendar sync, bulk team management, rebooking, feedback tabs, activity reports, and more. It’s the kind of steady, practical improvement that doesn’t make headlines but makes the tool better every month.

If your MLS is exploring showing solutions, Aligned Showings is worth a look.

👉 alignedshowings.net

My thanks again to them for sponsoring Vendor Alley.

Joynt Tackles the Messy Reality of Co-Ownership

Joynt Launches Property Ownership-Sharing System to Simplify and Improve the Experience

“Joynt recognizes the traditional path to homeownership doesn’t work for everyone, especially as home, family, and community may mean something different to all of us today. Buying property together is tough and managing that investment over time can be even more challenging. Joynt brings clarity to chaos.”

Co-ownership isn’t new. Pacaso comes to mind. Friends buying vacation homes together, siblings inheriting a family property, couples going in on a rental — it happens all the time.

But this Joynt hits different (see what I did there?)

What’s new is how common it’s becoming for primary residences as affordability pushes more buyers to split the cost.

The problem? Co-ownership is a legal and logistical nightmare. Who pays what? How do you schedule use? What happens when someone wants out? Most people figure it out with spreadsheets, group texts, and crossed fingers. Until they don’t.

Joynt is building the infrastructure to make it work:

Basic tier: Shared calendar, budgeting, invoicing, voting system for group decisions.

Pro tier: LLC formation, blockchain-stored records, automated expense splits, maintenance tracking, and — critically — an exit framework for when someone wants to sell their share.

That last one matters. The “what if someone wants out” question kills more co-ownership deals than anything else. Having a process baked in from day one is smart.

Is this a big market? I’m not sure. When median home prices keep climbing and wages don’t, creative ownership structures stop being edge cases. They become survival strategies. As I’ve written before we need to start thinking in terms of housing, not just traditional purchases.

Worth watching.

Are MLS rankings by Compass a big deal?

How Strict Are the MLSs? Here’s How Compass Saw It

“As it prepared to scale up its 3-Phase Marketing Strategy, which includes two off-MLS phases, Compass set out internally to get a clear view of the rules that MLSs — big and small — had in place that might intersect with the plan.”

This story is from last week but I wanted to do some digging. I downloaded the spreadsheet the Inman story referenced. Compass ranked 171 MLSs on a 1-to-5 scale for “restrictiveness.”

Here’s what the numbers say:

ScoreMLSs%
5 (Most Restrictive)10.6%
4 (Highly Restrictive)74.1%
3 (Moderate)14484.2%
2 (Friendly)148.2%
1 (Wide Open)52.9%

Read that again. Only 8 MLSs scored a 4 or 5. That’s it. Eight.

Compass is betting they only have to fight 8 MLSs. The other 163? Either friendly or not worth worrying about.

The Score 5 club has one member:

  • Northwest MLS (NWMLS)

The same MLS that cut off Compass’s IDX feed. The same MLS Compass sued. No surprises there.

The Score 4 list:

  • CRMLS (California Regional)
  • NTREIS (North Texas)
  • Georgia MLS
  • First MLS (Atlanta)
  • SmartMLS (Connecticut)
  • Greenwich Association of REALTORS®

If my math is correct these MLS Organizations represent about 290,000 real estate agents. Which if we say there are 1.4M members of NAR, then that’s about 20%. Also, nobody pushes Greenwich in to a corner!

Meanwhile, the “Compass-Friendly” Score 2 list includes:

  • Bright MLS
  • MRED (Chicago)
  • Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR)
  • ACTRIS (Austin)
  • San Diego MLS
  • MLSListings (Silicon Valley)
  • The MLS (Los Angeles)
  • San Francisco Association of REALTORS®

That’s a lot of major markets where Compass sees a clear runway.

The irony? MRED — currently in a standoff with Zillow over its Private Listing Network (PLN) — landed on the Compass-friendly list. Turns out you can fight one portal while enabling another.

84% of MLSs got a 3. The vast middle. Compass is probably betting these swing votes won’t put up a fight if the big dominoes fall.

So if you’re an MLS executive, you might want to know where you stand on this list. Because Compass already does.

Realtor.com Bets on Collaboration in an Industry Addicted to Conflict

Realtor.com® Unveils Realtor.com®+™: A First-of-Its-Kind Collaborative Home Search Experience 

“Realtor.com® was born from the partnership between the National Association of Realtors® and MLSs, and for three decades we’ve championed an open marketplace that delivers transparency and meaningful value to consumers and professionals,” said Damian Eales, CEO of Realtor.com®. “Realtor.com®+™ modernizes that legacy by putting more powerful tools into more agents’ hands than any product in our history, keeping professionals at the center of the transaction, and giving MLSs the valuable AI-driven capabilities and member tools they need to lead the industry forward. ”

I love this move from Realtor.com. While everyone else is fighting and suing each other, Realtor.com’s CEO, Damian Eales chose to build alliances instead. Who would’ve thought a portal, run by an Australian, might be the one to bring collaboration back to the MLS?!

That’s the thread running through this entire announcement: collaboration.

First, the partnerships. Realtor.com+ is launching with more than 15 MLS organizations, representing over 120,000 agents. That speaks to a void in the market.

Then there’s the app — enter the whiz kids from Zenlist. The team at Zenlist already built a world-class agent–client collaboration experience, and now it’s seamlessly tied into the broader Realtor.com ecosystem.

Next, the integrations. Deep connections into MLS systems, plus vendors like Realtors Property Resource, DocuSign, and Hover.

While CoStar leans into bluster, Zillow toys to play big daddy, and Compass pushes seller-centric exclusivity as a wedge, Realtor.com is betting that the open marketplace still matters — and that strengthening it beats fragmenting it.

So Realtor.com is doing the logical thing: reinforcing the network that made it relevant in the first place. The difference is how they’re doing it. We all know Damian isn’t afraid of a picking fight, but instead he’s picking partners.

In a sea of “disruptors,” collaboration might be the most disruptive move of all.

Bravo.

Can You Regulate “Public Marketing”?

Overview

Rob and Greg open the episode by honoring Glenn Kelman’s retirement from Redfin, reflecting on his leadership style, industry impact, and memorable moments. The conversation then pivots to new state-level legislation in Wisconsin and Washington targeting listing transparency, and whether laws attempting to regulate “public marketing” will actually change broker behavior—or simply create loopholes.

Key Takeaways

  • Glenn Kelman’s legacy: Widely regarded as a first-ballot industry Hall of Famer for his longevity, candor, and mission-driven leadership at Redfin.
  • Marketing vs. data: “Marketing” a listing is not the same as disclosing full MLS data—an important distinction lawmakers may be overlooking.
  • Legislation limits: New laws requiring public marketing are difficult to define and enforce, and may fail to prevent private or limited-exposure listings.
  • Free market tension: Over-regulation can lead to workarounds and unintended consequences rather than the transparency it aims to create.
  • MLS role evolving: MLS participation is increasingly seen as a trade-off rather than a necessity, though inertia and seller expectations remain powerful forces.

Links

Satirical Realtor Video

Connect with Rob and Greg

Rob’s Website 

Greg’s Website 

Watch us on YouTube

Our Sponsors:

Cotality 

Notorious VIP

The Giant Steps Job Board 

Production and Editing Services by Sunbound Studios

Sponsored By Aligned Showings