OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate, issued a statement in support of clear cooperation — the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) policy that maintains agents must enter listings into the MLS within one day of marketing the properties to the public.
“[Clear cooperation] was put into place to create a more open, fair and equitable real estate landscape,” Jacobi said in a statement via Windermere’s Instagram. “There’s a large national real estate company whose leadership is making a lot of noise about their opposition to clear cooperation, suggesting it’s collusive and anticompetitive. We would argue the exact opposite.”
The post seems to be a clear reference to Compass CEO and outspoken clear cooperation critic Robert Reffkin, who championed Compass-exclusive listings in the brokerage’s business model. That policy can effectively hide certain listing stats, like days on market or previous price drops, from prospective buyers of all Compass-listed homes.
“The real motivation behind this company’s opposition to clear cooperation is pretty clear: wanting to keep listings off the open market so that they can double-end deals and boost profits. Hoarding inventory is only good for one party: the large real estate brokerage,” the statement continued. “It hurts sellers by limiting the number of buyers who see their home. It hurts buyers who no longer have visibility into all homes for sale. It raises all sorts of red flags around fair housing liability and throws us back to the old-school days of real estate when our industry was exclusionary.”
Jacobi added that in theory, ending clear cooperation would benefit Windermere in a place like Seattle, where it has the largest market share — but that “creating a private listing network without rules of engagement, where properties are restricted to the largest companies, is inherently collusive and anti-competitive.”
The caption continued: “When buying or selling a home, transparency matters. Windermere stands firmly in support of clear cooperation, ensuring open access to listings, creating a fairer market for buyers and sellers alike. Let’s keep real estate equitable and accessible for everyone.”