Policing the pocket listings

This is HousingWire’s two-part series examining the ramifications of NAR’s decision last year to ban pocket listings. Part 1 looked at the history of the ban and inherent enforcement problems it posed. Part 2 examines how MLSs have implemented the measure so far, and legal challenges to the pocket prohibition. 

Ryan Cook has a few MLS bills to pay. There’s the $87 every three months he pays to MLS PIN, and the extra $100 a month he pays as a broker for their data feed. Plus, Cook hands over fees to the Rhode Island State-Wide MLS and Cape Cod & Islands MLS.

The owner of a HomeSmart affiliated brokerage in Plymouth, Massachusetts and member of his local realtor board, Cook contends that MLS PIN – again, not owned by an NAR chapter, but with its own listing requirement – does not police said requirement. 

“It’s not being enforced,” the broker claimed. “Someone has to report it, and even if they report something, everyone looks the other way.”

Just as MLS ownership and structure varies so too does enforcement among MLSs. There’s perhaps more policing in the Cape Cod area, whose MLS is owned by the local NAR affiliate.

“I know they communicate pretty regularly there,” Cook said. “It all comes down to leadership of the MLS, and what they want to uphold.”