Key points:
- Canopy MLS subscribers will have the option to pre-market listings using new Limited Exposure and Firm Exclusive options, launching early next year.
- CEO Anne Marie DeCatsye stresses the changes, based on subscriber feedback, were made to “provide relief for listing agents” — not to appease any one brokerage.
- Canopy won’t implement NAR’s delayed marketing category, but it has adopted NAR’s revised interpretation of agent communications as they relate to Clear Cooperation.
Canopy MLS is rolling out new listing options that will enable agents to pre-market their seller’s property — without displaying price history or tracking days on market.
While the additions resemble the National Association of Realtors’ “delayed marketing exempt listings” category, introduced in March, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based MLS opted to “do what made sense for Canopy” rather than implement NAR’s version, Canopy MLS CEO Anne Marie DeCatsye told Real Estate News.
More flexibility for listing agents, sellers
By early next year, Canopy MLS’s 22,000-plus subscribers will have two new listing options, “Limited Exposure” and “Firm Exclusive,” the MLS announced this week.
Limited Exposure listings will be available for showings, but excluded from IDX, VOW and syndication feeds. Price history will be stored but not displayed to other subscribers, and days on market will not be tracked.
The Firm Exclusive option allows listing brokers to enter listings into the MLS system, but they will only be viewable by agents within that brokerage. Canopy will record price changes, but that price history will not appear in the listing’s history or reports, the MLS said.
In the meantime, Canopy will also modify its “Coming Soon-No Show” status to suppress price history. Once the listing becomes active, only the newest price will be visible, though days on market and all future price changes will be displayed from that point.
‘Changes not made to appease one firm’
The suppression of days on market and price history aligns with the views of some large brokerage leaders — notably Compass CEO Robert Reffkin — who argue that displaying those metrics, which Compass refers to as “negative insights,” can disadvantage sellers.
But, DeCatsye said, “Canopy MLS did not make any changes to appease any one firm in particular” but to “provide relief for listing agents as the market shifts,” noting that the changes were based on feedback from subscribers.
“Relief” means “enabling agents with the flexibility to meet their clients’ needs,” DeCatsye said.
“We believe agents should not have to choose between meeting their client’s requests and adhering to rules that are meant to address challenges but occasionally create obstacles,” she added.
“These changes help to restore fairness for everyone involved, especially buyers and sellers.”
A ‘balance’ between seller control and transparency
Some industry leaders have emphasized that displaying days on market and price history is core to a transparent marketplace, even questioning the motives of those who want to obscure such data.
But in the current environment — where “listings are staying on the market longer, showings are fewer, and buyers’ and sellers’ expectations are often unrealistic,” according to DeCatsye — Canopy’s Limited Exposure option gives sellers more control initially while ensuring “buyers and agents have access to complete and transparent information” once the listing is on the open market.
“[I]t balances seller choice with the need for clear, accurate data that builds trust among consumers and maintains fairness in the marketplace,” DeCatsye said.
Canopy won’t adopt NAR’s delayed marketing category
Canopy’s changes come in advance of NAR’s Sept. 30 deadline for Realtor-affiliated MLSs to implement its optional Multiple Listing Options for Sellers (MLOS) policy.
The policy, intended to complement Clear Cooperation, introduces a new category of listings called “delayed marketing exempt listings” (DMEL) that can be withheld from IDX and syndication feeds for an MLS-determined period of time, which could be zero days.
In August, Canopy’s board of directors independently decided to update its listing options for sellers and declined to adopt NAR’s DMEL category, the MLS said. Some other large MLSs have also chosen to forgo implementation.
DeCatsye, a champion for MLS freedom from Realtor association control, stressed that Canopy had made its own decisions with regard to which options to offer sellers.
“When NAR came out with the DMEL proposal, we looked at it but decided that we would continue to move forward with what made sense for Canopy,” DeCatsye said.
Policy changes alleviate agents’ ‘single biggest frustration’
DeCatsye declined to compare Canopy’s new policies with NAR’s, but they appear to align.
Effective immediately, Canopy’s “Firm Exclusive Agreement” will allow agents within a listing brokerage “to share listings directly with their clients and customers through one-to-one” communications. Previously, Canopy allowed such listings to be shared with clients who had signed agreements, but not with unsigned customers.
The MLS has also adopted NAR’s most recent interpretation that “one-to-one, agent-to-agent communications about listings do not trigger” a CCP violation — an interpretation, NAR said when announcing its MLOS policy, meant to clarify CCP rules.
DeCatsye disagreed with this characterization, saying it was “a change, not a clarification.”
NAR’s original guidance, she said, indicated that “agent-to-agent communications constituted public marketing, thereby triggering CCP.” While Canopy complied with the policy, it found that original interpretation “extremely difficult to enforce.”
“The single biggest frustration surrounding CCP was the fact that agents could not pick up the phone and call an agent in another firm to see if they had a buyer without triggering CCP,” DeCatsye said.
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