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The second-largest multiple listing service in the United States will soon add a feature that will let real estate agents signal to buyers that they’re willing to make concessions when listing a home.
Starting June 11, Bright MLS, which boasts more than 100,000 subscribers across six states in the Mid-Atlantic region, will enable two optional (but not required) data fields that listing agents or their agents can complete when submitting listings on the Bright platform.
The fields are in response to the National Association of Realtors’ proposed settlement of several antitrust lawsuits brought by home sellers that, in part, requires agent-affiliated MLSs such as Bright to eliminate the ability of sellers to provide compensation to buyer-side brokers through the MLS.
In response, some MLSs, including the largest California regional MLS in the country, have decided to add seller concession fields to their platforms. These MLSs, including Bright, already have seller concession fields for when a listing closes, but not when it is listed on the MLS. Bright also plans to update its seller concession field for when it closes.
“Bright must take steps to change its rules and systems to comply with the terms of the settlement and provide greater transparency to all consumers we serve,” MLS said in a statement. announcement The company announced this on its website on Thursday.
“Bright will soon be updating its property registration and policies as we move forward together into a new era of real estate. Bright has worked closely with the association, board, legal counsel and leadership to chart the most collaborative, transparent and effective path forward for the future of real estate in the United States.”
Bright now has closing-related fields that allow the listing broker or their agent to specify whether the seller made concessions, the amount, and the recipient of the concessions, as well as an open text box to detail the type of concession.
Starting in June, Bright will add two seller concession fields available during listing entry. One is a Yes/No field asking if the seller is offering a concession. The other asks for the amount of the concession and whether the concession is a dollar amount or a percentage of the home’s sales price. Listing brokers and agents can choose not to complete either field, or to only complete the first Y/N field and not specify an amount or amount format, depending on their preference.
“MLS subscribers will not be permitted to indicate specific amounts of buyer and broker compensation in these new fields, in comments or anywhere within the MLS system,” Bright said.
Source: Bright MLS
When entering a listing, there is no option to specify the type of concessions being offered, but Bright is adding four new concession fields at closing to allow listing agents and brokers to specify whether the seller made concessions for home repairs or improvements, finance-related fees, buyer’s broker fees or closing costs, and the amount of each.
Rene Galicia
“While not required by the settlement, the ability of MLSs to continue to collect and display seller concession information is consistent with the settlement and is addressed as part of the settlement,” Rene Galicia, Bright’s executive vice president of client advocacy, told Inman.
“We looked at the data and found that while the fields aren’t there currently, our subscribers include things like discount information and credits for a significant number of listings each year. So we’re adding these fields to help structure that data and ensure transparency isn’t compromised in sellers’ ability to market their homes properly and offer discounts.”
Galicia added that because real estate agents and brokers don’t have a section dedicated to real estate concessions, they write them in the agent and public comment section for “thousands of listings a year.”
according to NAR settlement proposalHowever, the agreement does not prevent a seller from offering buyer concessions (such as buyer’s closing costs) on a real estate agent’s MLS “so long as such concessions are not limited to or conditioned on the retention or payment of a cooperating broker, buyer’s broker, or other buyer’s agent.”
Galicia stressed that the information entered into the seller’s concessions section is not binding.
“These are not obligations,” Galicia says, “They are invitations to negotiate, so even if they are listed on the MLS, they should be requested and documented as part of your purchase contract.”
“Our goal here is to let the seller know they have the funds to negotiate,” Galicia added.
“If a buyer needs help, they may ask the seller to pay a portion of the buyer’s agent’s fees, inspections or repair costs. Concessions is a broad term we use here. We define it as any credit from the seller to the buyer.”
Covered MLSs must implement the changes required by the NAR settlement by August 17. Because August 17 is a Saturday, Bright plans to implement changes such as removing the compensation field and adopting new rules requiring buyer-broker agreements on August 14.
“The idea of opening up the concession area on June 11 and adopting the NAR rules on Aug. 14 is to get in front and prepare to ensure a smooth transition for subscribers, agents and brokers when the payment-related changes come into effect,” Galicia said.
Source: Bright MLS
Galicia said the new concession fields will be available on agent and broker listing sites as well as third-party listing portals.
“Transparency in the market is something we want to maintain, so that buyers, wherever they find a property, know immediately what the seller is likely offering or what they can negotiate based on what the seller has shown them,” Galicia said.
So what can be done to prevent the new listed concession field from becoming a new compensation field that serves as a workaround for settlement?
“There are two things: 1. We have expressly prohibited and will continue to prohibit compensation sharing in MLS in our rules, and this will involve enforcement of the rules, which will result in fines, and 2. We will actively monitor it through our staff and our algorithms,” Galicia said.
“The concessions column is not a proxy for compensation,” Galicia added. “That is expressly prohibited by our rules. This is simply about what the seller is offering to cover or pay on the buyer’s side. So this is not about commission. This is not about the broker offering compensation. This is about the seller and their offer, or at least their thinking for accepting the offer.”
He also stressed that Bright would launch a campaign on Thursday to educate subscribers about the changes.
“We want to make sure that everybody is acting with integrity,” Galicia said. “We’ll be doing a lot of awareness-raising over the next few months through training our members, our local associations, our broker offices, and also partnering with state associations to make sure that everybody is on the same message and doing a lot of training.”
“You can’t get away from our training. We communicate with every single one of our subscribers to make sure they understand how this works and the rules. We want to make sure they’re following the rules and, more importantly, they’re doing the right thing with consumers and how they’re using our system.”
Asked what would prevent selling agents from deciding to stick with what they currently offer as buyer’s agent fees – typically 2.5% or 3%, depending on the market – Galicia said Bright’s compliance team would be keeping an eye on it.
“We are fortunate to have a full-time compliance team that, through staff time, algorithmic detection using AI and other programming, can spot check behavior and if we see a consistent amount of trading coming from a particular broker or agent, we can investigate,” Galicia said.
“One of the things we do in terms of regulations is we do random audits and ask for copies of listing agreements and sales instructions, so if there are any violations of our regulations we will take action.”
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