Emily Girard: MLS Whack-A-Mole

Hey everyone, this is Mike DelPretty and you're listening to Context, the podcast where I'm talking to industry leaders about what's changing in the world of real estate. I'm joined today by Emily Gerard. Hi, Emily. - Hey, how are you? - Great, how are you? - Good. - Emily is the CEO of the Austin Board of Realtors and also the CEO of Unlock MLS, which is Austin's MLS. - Correct. - So yeah, awesome to have you here. I guess to start out what Emily does your morning routine look like. How do you typically start your day? - Oh, well I live two different lives. I have a kid life and a not-kid life because I share kiddos with their dad, 50/50. So weeks where there are kids start more abruptly, occasionally yelling upstairs to someone to come downstairs and put their shoes on and get out the door. And then not-kid weeks, I prefer to start with a cup of coffee and some reading and thinking before my day kicks off with meetings and reaction and all that good stuff. - Are you able to successfully start the day without kind of an electronic device, whether it's checking your email on a phone or your computer? - Yeah, this is so interesting. So I'm like a third of the way through a book called DOS. I'm really interested in dopamine right now because my 11-year-old is an ADHD kid and I seek to understand him so that I don't murder him on the day-to-day. But truly dopamine is like the thing with ADHD kids that is especially rewired in them and so I'm trying to understand it. And I now understand how bad these devices are in terms of impacting our dopamine at the top of the day when we reach for them right off the bat. So now that I have that knowledge and I'm aware I'm trying to be more disciplined about not starting my day that way. - Yeah. - I'm not good at it yet. - It's hard. I mean, some of it is just logistically. Is that the alarm that I use in a hotel room at any given conference? Yes, there's things like that. And you're just rewiring your patterns, your muscle memory and trying to change those things. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So, but I have awareness that's step one. - Good. Well, good luck in the journey and let me know if you come up with any cool tips or tricks. - I will try. - All right, so I really appreciate you being here in Boulder and near after this. You'll be speaking to my university class, which is amazing. And we've known each other for a couple of years now and I've really enjoyed getting to know you over that period of time. You know, I think you're one of the smartest MLS people I know in the industry and you have such a great perspective on things. And MLS is, this is something that I'm going to start a lecture about today in class. You know, I mean, they're that critical plumbing across the whole industry, whether you like them or not, whether you want them or need them or not. They're there, right? And you can't just ignore them, pretend they're not there. Nothing that goes on in the industry. Well, rather, let me, let me say the inverse, everything that goes on in the industry. Whether you're a real estate portal or you're a brokerage or an agent or we're talking about exclusive inventory or you, the portal wars where you want to compete with the incumbents. MLS is an even AI. MLS is all play a very central and pivotal role in all of that. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely true. And as someone that actually came to this work by way of the association. If you're really forced from the trees, then you know too that the relationships established through the professional trade association are really the root of all of that. Like, we know MLS is today as that kind of utility that the plumbing to your point. But really, it's a network of relationships that are cooperative that make this industry go round. And that all stems from this whole other background, which was that professional trade association background. So they are very, very different. And I like, I like that they're different, understand that and preach that. Especially to association peers that sometimes want them to collide or want them to be one in the same. But I really like to think about how our start was from those people and from those relationships trying to make, take two to make a transaction happen. Yeah. So let's, let's start with, gosh, it was probably a month ago where I sent you a text either Friday or Saturday. You went to my weekend. And that was what you replied. You're like, thanks for ruining my weekend. Like, that was the whole Google House Canary listings thing. So when, when you saw that. Yeah. What went through your mind? Well, I thought, in my mind, I say, well, I've got to call stand. My stand is, is our COO and my partner in, you know, evaluating data uses and licensing and all the MLS stuff that we do. But what went through my mind is, I regret that we continue to react. And I really regret that we're in a position as MLS is an as an industry to some degree where our structure is not equipped to really celebrate and promote opportunities like this to gain exposure for listings to elevate the value of that listing content. And I hate that my initial reaction to that is a negative one of like, well, now I've got to go be the enforcement arm because our structure is not bill for that. What was the problem with that? And by that, you know, for anybody who was not aware of this, this was kind of Google displaying for sale listings directly in the search results. So what's the problem with that? Well, I mean, there are issues of concern related to control, like what level of control did House Canary have over data that they've licensed that they've agreed to contractually control to a certain degree. So just some question marks. So on that, you mean House Canary has an agreement with you, a data licensing agreement. Take that data. But now they're turning around. Yeah. Now they're turning around and going to Google and doing more stuff with that data that may not have been in that agreement between you and House Canary. And they're advertising those listings beyond the intent and spirit of IDX, at that point too. I mean, that's that's a different type of commercial relationship. So IDX for our listeners in 60 seconds or less, can you talk about what the idea of IDX, the spirit and intent of that is? Yeah, it's to cooperatively share and expose listing content. So you put listings in the system, I put listings in the system. I'm going to show everyone's listings on my website so that we're all getting the benefit of having exposed that listing content and marketing those listings wide. Well, I mean, that sounds like the what Google was doing now. Right. It's the way, I mean, there are specific parameters of the way that it was designed in that integration that are outside of the uses of IDX. And in some question, whether they were outside of licensure law in different states as well. I mean, you've got these kind of layers of questions and issues to peel apart. There's the licensing rules, the things that we control as a number less. There are, excuse me, the licensing of the data rules. There are the licensure rules. So fiduciary commitment questions around what it means to actually be a party to a real estate transaction. Those are unique to every single state legislature. You have federal real estate and fiduciary ask requirements. There's a lot of layers, I think, to the assessments of how we evolved that kind of activity in the industry. It's not super straightforward. So in a sense, you're the guardian of this data. You have a contractual obligation to manage it. Yeah. And to manage its use. So that's your first, that was your first reaction as the guardian of this. Yeah, my thought process is what paper did they sign? What's on that paper? And is what they're doing now allowable under that use? And then if you look at it again, you know, for sale listings from Austin appearing in Google search results, is that a good thing? Maybe it's a good thing if it's clear who listed that property. Like if the listing display is really clearly notated, I think that's what's fair in terms of who contributed that content and who holds the listing. It could be great in terms of exposure. I mean, we love the idea of like broadening who has access to those listings and how people comment them is going to change in the future because how people search and interact with the internet is changing. So we're going to create a way for these things to be really great. We just need to figure out what the table stakes are of how we manage it. Do you feel like it's slipping away from you, you know, with AI and Google and all this stuff? I feel I don't know that it's slipping away from me, but I don't like the posture that I'm in when I have to consider these issues right now. I don't, I generally, this is a person and a leader, don't like to be reactive and fear based when thinking strategically about our future and there's such potential for this future. So what I really don't like is that our structure has us in this kind of reactive compliance mode as opposed to thinking collaboratively about how we create a future that makes this really great for the listing agent makes this really great for the buyer agent. Most importantly makes this really accessible for the consumer. The phrase you used with me that I really love is that you feel like you're playing whack-a-mole. Oh, yeah, yes, totally. How do you, how do you stop playing whack-a-mole? I mean, there's a few things. One thing that we think a lot about and that many of us should think more about is how many times we've allowed the database to be replicated. So, you know, many consumers of our data prefer to replicate that data wholesale and then work from their own replicated access to that database to build out their tools and all of their, their fun things that their business is about. That inherently means that we lack control because now the data is out of my tent. It's in their tent and then they're building from it and I have to trust that they're going to adhere to what's on the paper again. So thinking critically about how we open more real time and really secure and supported access to that data that is technologically sound and supportive of today's technology needs and today's business needs is something that we have to do better at so that we can stop the replication and then manage more real time who's accessing the data how much of it they're accessing and what they're doing with it. Why do you feel like you need to be part of the process? Like what does the world look like if MLSS or us, you know, unlock disappears and all these parties you're talking about, they just kind of, you know, it's like the Wild West, they start interacting with each other. I mean, you're really asking what's the benefit of the existence of an MLSS, not specific just to licensing, but in general, the human centered answer to that is access and equitable access. You know, allowing for there to be some sort of common place where a market is relatively complete, relatively accessible, facts are facts and fiction is fiction is something that is supportive of everyone's ability to buy into this and participate in this business and in this dream. And I like that. I like that for America. You know, are we ever going to be 100% that? Absolutely not. I don't think we need to be or should be, but I think when we have the majority of that activity, you level the playing field for the people that seek to participate in this business and seek to participate in that dream. And when you say the people, you're talking about agents and brokers consumers, I'm talking about, yeah, I mean the buyer that wants to know realistically what they should or shouldn't pay for that property. I'm thinking about the list, the seller who wants to, you know, pursue moving on or moving up or moving down or moving out and know realistically what the characteristics of that transaction might bring them. There's certainty in using the MLS because there's context to understanding what's happening in the market at any given moment. And then I'm not flying blind when it comes to this major life decision that's happening in my life. Yeah. It doesn't it seem like years ago that NAR revised the clear cooperation policy. In some ways, it seems like a really long time ago and in other ways, it feels like the thing that has never gone away and just the bayon of our existence. Well, I'm thinking, you know, I'm forming the sentence in my mind and it's like, oh, last year, NAR, and I'm thinking to myself, wow, last year, it feels like it was a lifetime ago, you know. Yeah, I mean, it was 2020. Well, that was the first one, but the revision. Oh, you're just thinking of the revision. Yeah, every year in this business feels like a decade. It does, but the point I was making there is you launched unlock launch something I really love flex listings last year. And you did that, I mean, that was before NAR had come out with this. So again, for the listeners who are not familiar with, you know, flex listings, what are those? And then why? Yeah, another way to think about them is that they're a skinny listing. They're less data points than a full or complete listing intended not to offer the level of exposure that a traditional MLS listing does in the sense that they're really, if you're putting in an influx, you really don't necessarily mean to plaster it here, they're in everywhere. And there might be a variety of reasons why that's the case. You might not be ready yet. You might be in that make ready period. You might be someone sensitive to privacy or have some personal circumstances associated with your home or family life that dictate that that hope or that requirement for your listing. There could be a number of reasons why that might be a fit for you. And part of why we designed them the way that we did was to try to accommodate a wide scope of all of those different nuances of real estate transactions that occur in the market on any given day. What's the difference between you're probably getting to this, but what's the difference between a skinny flex listing and a normal MLS list? Yeah, one is exposure. So they're not in the IDX feeds. These listings are not automatically on everyone else's brokerage site. Where are they? They are only in matrix, which is our MLS application, but they're only available to agents. And they're also available in the consumer portals that we offer. So we offer a product called one home. That's a place where only agents or only consumers who are tethered to an agent can be. And it's a place where they can set up their own save searches in those save searches. They get both traditional listings and the flex listings. So if they want to search everything, they can see everything, but they're not doing it on this wide net on the internet. So if a compass agent in Austin posts a flex listing, any agent in Austin can see that. Correct. And their clients can in a controlled environment. The clients can in a controlled environment using the portal that you offer. Yes. Now, technically the agent could select an internet display of yes for those listings. And they could push that skinny less data listing out to internet sites as well. Both portals in the third party sense, like realtor.com and those that operate as vows like zillow or homes.com. But that's specifically at the direction of both the client and then the agent's action. Got it. Okay. So what keep going. What else? Are there any other differences with that listing? The main difference is just that you're not required to provide as much data. I mean, you don't even have to actually provide a list price if you don't want to. And it's the intent. It really is you can test the market. If you've got, again, that sensitivity to privacy and you want less information, you don't have to have a photo if you don't want one. I mean, there's a number of different kind of typical restrictions or constraints that exist with real full listings because we desire for that whole data set and we want for complete information to be available in most cases. But you want this place where you can kind of test the water and it mirrors more of what we see in private networks to where it's a taste of a listing that taste might really prompt action from the buyer agent to contact the listing agent. And then we might get into more conversation before we pursue the transaction. Can anyone force an agent or a consumer to use a, you know, a private listing or a flex listing? No, I mean, I, who decides? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great question. I think it's one that's dependent on the consumer and how, how headstrong or intent they are on how they're going to approach the sale of their home in Austin. It's a very real thing that some consumers come forward and say right off the bat, my intention is to privately market this property and that's the way I'm going to sell it. It's a known marketing opportunity in Austin. Yeah. There's a known sensitivity to sales price disclosure in Texas. So you have to remember that Texas is no income tax heavy property tax property taxes your heaviest tax burden in Texas. And we don't have mandatory sales price disclosure. So there's no automatic capturing at the governmental level from a taxing perspective of the actual value of the property or what it sold for. MLSs have the, the most cumulative and aggregate amount of data as it relates to sold property and there's a perception and there was a reality at one point that appraisal districts who set the appraised property value for those homes have access to MLSs and are using that information to set your property tax value. And your property tax value matters in Texas because again, there's no income tax. So there's a consumer perception that the use of the MLS while it may be a benefit from a marketing perspective might be harmful from a tax perspective if the sold price is captured there and if that is somehow shared with the appraisal district. That's interesting. I did not know that is, is that what's driving the use of private networks off MLS networks. That is definitely one thing that has driven private networks in Austin for a long time. The notion of private networks and CCP, like long before CCP off market, hip, hip pocket, I mean we had a hundred different names for it. Activity was very real in Austin. So what can you give me some numbers like what percentage of listings go private? Intuitively, we think it's close to like one in five. It's a chunk. Yeah, 20%. Yeah. And so sometimes when when I've talked about clear cooperation policy on panels or in industry discussions before one of the things that I'm very clear about is I don't have the right nor would it be beneficial to me to vilify the consumer that comes to the table with that expectation. So when hardcore CCP enthusiasts say there's no way that somebody comes to table not wanting to use the MLS I said that's just simply not true where I am like there are people who do come to the table that way and I have to figure out how to accommodate them which was really that was the root of thinking about flex and giving them a different option. So does flex accommodate them? I mean, you still have the data in the MLS. Yeah, we do. I mean, we're still taking the sole price. We're still but maybe there's less exposure on the front end of the marketing. There's a little less, you know, maybe we're curtailing some of that sensitivity there. The other things that we've done to help curtail some of that consumer sensitivity to sole prices, we don't allow for the sole price to be displayed even on a vow. So it's in the feed but it's not available for display any longer. That was one way that we knew that the appraisal district staff was logging in as a vow user and just accessing all of that sold data on vow websites. So we put a stop to that. The other thing that we did was to create a new rule that an appraisal district cannot be a client of any participant or subscriber. So we literally pull the public record information request the names of the appraisers who work or the appraisal district. We identify if they're subscribers and then we send them affidavits that say that they attest to the fact that they're not sharing that information with the appraisal district and we're very vocal and public about that because we're continuing to kind of try to curtail this consumer fear that the MLS is not a secure place that it's not a safe space. I guarantee you 99% of people listening have no idea that any of that was happening. 100% and they're so respectively in their corners on this topic based on a headline that Invin has run or something that they read in real estate news or something that they saw on social media and it's so interesting to me that like we have just gotten so far from the nuance of the actual transactional stuff like this is the real life of real estate how in terms of flex listings with what's the adoption like you know how many out of every 10 listings how many are flex still low and we don't want I mean it's not ideal to have like 90% of my listings be flex listings because they're skinny right like we're missing important and valid data there but seeing any given day several hundred of them at a time okay and several could be closer to like two or 300 maybe and that fluctuates many they're properly flipping from flex to full listing when the consumer is ready for that level of exposure it was important for us to also monitor that like they could be fluid in the way that the consumer wanted and we're seeing some close as lots of them flip to full listing and then close that way what do you think when you hear somebody say it's best that consumers do X I think it's there's not one statement that you could say there that would be true I mean there's just not it's there's not a magic bullet to what's best for a consumer there are too many nuances too many unique factors for those individuals and too many unique factors for that specific marketplace to like name it and I think we've many leaders in our industry have used the shield of the consumer and they've tried to leverage that as the you know trudging forward with their position and I think it's not real life that that's why I like you Emily because you say it how it is. Respectfully it's not real life yeah so let's let's rewind back to last year and this is more of a personal question and a leadership question you personally decided to start working on and then launch flex listings before what basically while everyone else was sitting around right everyone was waiting for NAR to come out with this clear cooperation revision and you know compass was doing what they were doing for more private exclusives Zillow had yet to do anything in that in that space like in terms of the listing access standards everybody was just sitting and waiting but not you not a you know boring stodgy old MLS down in Texas so what was going through your mind why. Yeah well one thing to know about me is in my background is in government affairs and I really like policy work because I like the work of building consensus I think it's fun and interesting and I like the challenge of it. And so we were it was not me alone doing that as much as it was me visiting with my brokers building relationship I did like really trying to listen beyond the headline for the real thing happening on the ground and trying to sort of navigate what could we put together that might put some of these pieces together and get people out of their corner. And I think we like that challenge in Austin I think it's you know we like being a little bold and that's a characteristic I think of the culture of the MLS that I'm a part of and the leadership that I work with. But moreover it was something broken for us for a long time so it wasn't just about CCP and it wasn't just about what was happening in that year waiting for NAR we had for a long time wanted to continue to tackle this problem and I think we had some bandwidth to do it and we had the commitment of the leadership to want to do it too. I've got a board that is really supportive of these kinds of initiatives and so we you know touched on. When you say it was broken what does that mean that there are people that did not want a list on the MLS because it was like full MLS or not. It was black or white you're on the MLS it's available to everyone or not. And they didn't want to be on the MLS because they were afraid of appraisers. I don't know maybe that's some of them some of them are also just sensitive to their privacy. So again like there's like a hundred different reasons why somebody might say that's not how I want to do it today. You know we had had a coming soon status coming soon statuses are totally arbitrary. How many days does it get to be in coming soon or not do you do allow showing do not allow showing like all totally arbitrary. You cannot one size fits all that period of time or the intention of that time with a rule. So we had to create something that had malleability to it but had enough structure that people understood the difference in the distinction between that and a full listing. And it seems like since then more MLS has kind of taken some inspiration from that and followed suit. I think so I think some have thought I mean obviously the release of the draft guidelines from an AR the demo the delayed marketing exempt listing. Most terrible we have the worst acronyms in this business. You know like that gave some some food for thought to every MLS as well. You know that's a funny process and they are starts by saying it's mandatory later sort of retracts that after they get into a head to head chicken fight with a large MLS. And then they back off and so but all of that set aside I think that gave some inspiration and conversation for folks to chew on as well. Yeah. Are there any opinions you hold that are pretty unpopular? Oh I'm sure. What are they? Yeah give us one. I wish we had never never launched the CCP requirement back in 20 and we said that yeah and I said that then Austin said that then I think. Why? It has distracted us from the real work that we should be focused on. I think it's caused both litigation risk and a reputational risk to a MLS's and associations. And it's created a dialogue that is that's moved moved the focus away from areas that I would have preferred we talk about. Such as like redefining what it means to be a participant in the MLS. Is that what or redefining the vowels or you know like the FTC DOJ decree lapsed and nothing happened. Right. That that feels problematic. We were held to the standard for 10 years. That standard was built on a legacy structure participant subscriber and everything that goes in with that. Like you know 20 years plus a go when business when the business of brokerage looked entirely different than it looks now. And we haven't really tackled how that might evolve. So VAO and IDX need to evolve 20/26? Yeah absolutely. What's your guiding kind of philosophy mission statement for that? That's a hard one. I think I'm in the midst of trying to figure that out just candidly. I think we're really trying to think about how we define the different types of use of data as opposed to defining the access to it. So most of what our policy structure is now is defined around what it means to be a participant and then inherently what you get as a result of that. Maybe we need to tear that differently. Maybe it's not as a participant everything under the net is yours now. Maybe we need to think differently about how you access different uses of what's made available to you as a participant. And do you want to do that because you want your MLS to stay relevant and have a seat at the table or do you feel like that's actually a job that you are uniquely positioned to do? Yes both. I mean one is we have some obligation to be sure that like what we put on paper is what we cannot hold. And I don't know that that's true today with regards to the use of IDX and VAO feeds. And then secondarily I think we in Austin have a mindset of wanting to create space for the innovation and space for the future. Which means I've got to create I've got to dismantle some of the constraints that are legacy and then figure out what the new guard will look like. Sure. Sure. And I imagine that's especially important today with AI and everything else going on. Very much so. Very much so. And I get like like we started the beginning of this conversation you ruined my Saturday because my reaction to that was reactive and and fear based and compliance based. And I'd much rather it be a huh like this is an interesting option how do I create opportunity for that right it's innovation right. I mean you're not anti innovation no no we want to be supportive of it. And I want to do that in a way that is also mitigating risk and you know reasonable and easily understood by the people who are participating like. It's I was in a conversation recently with my team and we were just talking about like as we're looking we're looking at our data licenses and potentially overhauling them and. The attorney in the room said well you know is this about economics and I said absolutely not. There will be an economic factor to it because it's a business decision but it's more about the the commitment that we have in our terms of use and in our relationship with the people that contribute all of that information like. We need to be indispensable to those people and they are indispensable to us. So I have to figure out how to make both ends of that work right. All right this has been amazing we're at time any closing thoughts. No I just so appreciate the opportunity and you know keep having the great conversations that you have I think they're they're helpful and they help help us think differently. Amazing awesome all right well Emily thanks for coming out and joining. I'm Mike Delperty you've been listening to context if you want to check out more my research podcast join my mailing list you can head over to my website at micdp.com all right thank you.