CityBiz: Why NAR’s Policy Changes Haven’t Delivered Meaningful Impact at Local Level

The National Association of Realtors made headlines last year by shifting control over key membership requirements from national mandates to local Multiple Listing Services. For working agents in Southern California, none of it has changed anything, according to Courtney Poulos, founder and CEO of ACME Real Estate in Los Angeles and a licensed broker with 20 years of experience.

Poulos tested the practical implications of NAR’s announcement by contacting her local MLS with a direct question: could agents now access transaction forms without NAR membership? The answer exposed the gap between what NAR announced and what is actually happening on the ground.

“I was told agents still need NAR membership to access the forms required to execute transactions,” Poulos says. “So despite the announced policy change, nothing has changed operationally in Southern California. The measure of any policy change is its actual impact on working agents, and in our market, the impact has been negligible.”

The Implementation Gap

The disconnect between NAR’s announcements and local practice traces back to a structural problem the policy changes did not address. By shifting responsibility to local MLSs without providing them resources or clear frameworks, NAR created what Poulos describes as a vacuum of authority and capability.

MLSs – Multiple Listing Services, the shared databases agents use to list and search properties – were built to aggregate and distribute listing data, not to set policy. They lack the legal infrastructure and industry context needed to make informed decisions about agent requirements, form access, and operational standards. Handing them those responsibilities without addressing those limitations has produced confusion rather than reform.

The forms issue is the clearest example. In California, transaction forms are created and maintained by the California Association of Realtors, which requires membership for access. Even if NAR membership were to become optional, state association membership – and by extension NAR membership – would remain functionally required, because agents cannot close transactions without those forms. “The supposed change to optional membership doesn’t translate to optional in practice,” Poulos says.

Why the Changes Fell Short

Poulos argues NAR’s approach addressed surface-level symptoms while leaving the underlying structural problems intact. The real issues are the fragmentation of more than 600 separate MLS systems, the absence of standardized practices, unclear value for membership fees, and unresolved questions about who controls listing data. Reassigning authority to local MLSs does not solve any of them.

She also points to how thoroughly the core functions of MLS systems have eroded. MLSs were built around two purposes: facilitating cooperative commission arrangements between agents and marketing listings to other agents. Both have been undercut by recent industry changes. Cooperative commissions are no longer pre-negotiated following the NAR settlement. Listing marketing now happens primarily through aggregator platforms where most buyers search. The value propositions that once justified MLS membership fees have weakened, but the fee structures have not adjusted to reflect that.

The Delayed Entry Problem

NAR’s attempt to address off-market listing concerns through a delayed entry policy – which allows individual MLSs to determine, case by case, how long agents can market a property off-market before public listing is required – has added another layer of inconsistency.

The policy assumes MLSs have the contextual knowledge to evaluate what is in the best interest of each seller and each property. Poulos argues they do not. A $50 million property in a niche luxury market has a different buyer pool, a different optimal marketing timeline, and different strategic considerations than a $500,000 starter home. Assigning those judgment calls to MLS administrators without giving them clear criteria is, in her view, a recipe for inconsistent decisions and frustrated agents. “It’s a recipe for inconsistent application and frustrated agents trying to navigate unclear and varying local interpretations,” she says.

Clear Cooperation Compliance Issues

The broader context for these changes is that several major brokerages have publicly stated they will no longer follow NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy – which requires agents to submit listings to the MLS within one business day of marketing them publicly – and NAR has not taken visible enforcement action.

When major firms announce they are operating outside a policy with no consequence, that policy has effectively stopped functioning. Poulos sees this as a direct signal about NAR’s ability to enforce its own rules. It also undercuts the rationale for the recent policy changes, which were partly intended to address the tensions driving brokerages away from Clear Cooperation. Those tensions – over data control, value proposition, and power dynamics between agents and platforms – were not resolved by reassigning authority to local MLSs. “You can’t fix fundamental value proposition problems and power dynamic issues through policy tweaks,” Poulos says. “You need structural reforms that address the actual concerns driving the behavior.”

What Would Actually Help

Poulos advocates for structural changes rather than policy adjustments that move responsibility without building capability. A nationwide MLS system, she argues, would eliminate fragmentation, standardize practices across markets, and give agents the collective bargaining power they currently lack when negotiating with national platforms. That is a structural fix. Telling local MLSs to figure it out is not.

She also calls for greater transparency around what membership fees fund and what agents receive in return. “Right now there’s opacity about where membership money goes and what agents receive,” Poulos says. Clearer accounting of costs and benefits would at least allow agents to evaluate whether continued membership serves their interests.

Impact on Boutique Brokerages

For ACME Real Estate, which closed $155 million in sales in 2024 across 35 agents, the absence of meaningful change means continued operation within a fragmented, expensive system whose value is increasingly difficult to justify. The brokerage pays multiple MLS fees, association dues at the state and national level, and technology fees – costs that agents are questioning more directly as the benefits become less clear.

“Boutique brokerages like ours operate efficiently by questioning every expense and ensuring it delivers value,” Poulos says. “When major policy changes are announced but nothing actually changes operationally, it reinforces agent skepticism about whether these organizations are serving member interests or maintaining self-serving structures.”

Looking Ahead

Without structural reform, Poulos expects continued fragmentation and ad hoc workarounds. Incremental policy adjustments that shift responsibility without building capacity will not resolve the problems agents are experiencing day to day. At some point, she argues, either NAR leadership moves toward real structural change or agents stop paying for systems that do not deliver clear value.

The rise of alternative platforms and direct brokerage-platform partnerships already suggests that market forces may accomplish what policy changes have not. When the gap between what an organization provides and what the market needs becomes wide enough, the market finds other solutions. “We may be approaching that point in real estate,” Poulos says.

About ACME Real Estate: ACME Real Estate, founded in 2011, is a boutique brokerage in Los Angeles specializing in residential real estate, luxury properties, and renovation-resale strategy for investors.