Northwest MLS – An Open, Fair, Transparent, and Comprehensive Marketplace for All

Published on: March 28, 2025

For more than 40 years, real estate brokerage firms in Washington state, as members of Northwest MLS, have agreed to cooperate and share all listings of all properties with the entire brokerage community and the public. 

Recently, some brokerage firms have advocated for MLS rules that facilitate hiding property listings from consumers and lobbied the real estate industry to accommodate those exclusionary practices.  Those efforts are not for the benefit of sellers or buyers, but are instead designed to benefit those brokerage firms by entrenching them as the gatekeepers of property listings.  Northwest MLS has declined to adopt those misguided, exclusionary rules. 

Northwest MLS strongly believes that consumers should have access to all property listings and that sellers are entitled to the benefit of exposure of their property to the full marketplace.  An open, fair, transparent, and comprehensive marketplace benefits all market participants, including sellers, buyers, brokers, and appraisers.

Proponents of hiding listings masquerade their self-dealing as offering “seller choice”.  They argue that sellers somehow benefit from not making their listing available to all potential buyers.  They don’t.  Here are the facts about Northwest MLS’s open and transparent marketplace:

• Buyers and brokers have equal access to all property listings
• Sellers’ listings are available to all potential buyers to maximize the sale price and terms
• Buyers can work with the broker of their choice rather than being unfairly compelled to work with a listing firm which represents the seller
• Brokers compete on price and service – rather than “insider” information about available properties
• Complete and accurate listing and sales data is available to all to make informed, fact-based decisions about listing, buying, and selling property
• Open access greatly supports fair housing

Restricting the visibility of available homes to a select, exclusive group of buyers and brokers is fundamentally unfair and perpetuates inequities that have long plagued the housing system.  Policies that further enable the proliferation of exclusionary practices, such as restricting access to listings, will lead to the dismantling of the real estate marketplace for the exclusive benefit of those brokerage firms that choose to exploit them.  The discriminatory effect and disparate impact that results from restricting access to listings to an exclusive group of buyers and brokers is just that – discrimination. 

Northwest MLS is committed to doing the right thing and continuing to promote and support the open, fair, transparent, and comprehensive marketplace that its members have advanced over the past four decades.  There is no place for exclusionary practices in our marketplace.