Update on the Pending Sale of REcolorado to MAZL, LLC
“Firstly, as noted in our public FAQ, MAZL, LLC, is a private company formed specifically to acquire the MLS service. Joseph E. Burks is the sole and only purchaser of REcolorado. He created MAZL, LLC specifically to execute the Letter of Intent (LOI) and complete the business transaction. There are no other investors.”
Denver Metro Association of REALTORS(r)
Okay, I’m just having a little fun with the title of this post. I don’t think Zillow has anything to do with the sale of REcolorado MLS. But I do want to point something out, and it may be obvious already to some but I don’t know why more people are not talking about it.
One person, in this case Joseph Burks, is about to own the 16th largest MLS organization (by agent count) in the country. I don’t think anyone really understands what the second order consequences of this decision could be. 🍿
I would love to know why he is uniquelhy qualifierd to operate the 16th largest MLS in the country – what is his team going to look like and what fundamental changes will he make to the company, especially as it relates to protecting leveraging MLS data curated by brokerages. I would also love to see what the governance of the corporation is going to look like. There are already a couple of individually owned MLS – MyStateMLS is probably the largest and most successful example. Their customers seem quite pleased with their approach, but they do have inherent data limitations because they do not roll up entire MLS regions. Going to be interesting for sure.
So far, the associations are running the mls and they let go of their key talent who are responsible for the innovation and accomplishments RE Colorado have made and their progressive leadership. It’s hard to believe the current effectiveness of the mls will persist when the talent that made them so good is now gone. I guess I’m being careful not to reflect on why MLSs operate so much better when their governance is broker based vs association based. Two different business objectives and apparently the RE Colorado shareholders recognized that mls should operate autonomously from the association owners. But it’s still not autonomous btw.