The MLS Has the Inventory. ROH Has the Better Model.

It’s time to replace the MLS model. Not because bringing all the real estate inventory together is a bad idea. It’s an excellent idea. It’s probably the most valuable thing the MLS has accomplished. But why does the industry assume that the MLS is the only organization capable of doing it? And why are we continuing to support an entire financial ecosystem built around something as simple as selling a house?
I recently watched a BAM Knowledge Brokers discussion featuring James Dwiggins, president of NextHome. James made a very passionate defense of the MLS. He described it as one of the greatest things the real estate industry has ever developed. And you know what? I agree with the principle behind that statement. Bringing the inventory together is enormously valuable. Buyers should be able to find what’s for sale. Sellers should have broad exposure. And agents should be able to help their clients without searching through dozens of competing brokerage networks.
But here’s where James and I disagree. He believes we need to protect the MLS system. I believe we need to replace its business model.
The problem isn’t centralized inventory. The problem is what the real estate industry has built around that inventory.
Think about it. A homeowner decides to sell a house. That house becomes a listing. The listing enters the MLS, and that data can flow to portals, brokerage websites, advertising companies, and other businesses. People searching for the house become leads. Those leads can be routed, sold, or used to generate referral fees. Companies make money from data, advertising, technology, access, and consumer relationships.
And somewhere in the middle of all that activity is a person who simply wants to sell a house.
Now, some of these businesses provide useful services. And the MLS itself generally doesn’t collect a commission every time a property sells. But the inventory it assembles supports a much larger commercial system. The money supporting that system ultimately comes from consumers, industry professionals, advertisers, and the economics of buying and selling homes. It doesn’t come from nowhere.
So why is the entire industry designed around keeping this arrangement in place?
Let me ask you something. If you were starting the real estate industry from scratch today, knowing what technology can do, would you build hundreds of MLS organizations with different rules, membership arrangements, restrictions on marketing, and complicated systems for distributing property information? Would you create a marketplace where a seller’s listing becomes the raw material for companies to generate leads and referral revenue? Or would you build one open, transparent, affordable place where people could find and sell houses?
That’s what I believe we should be doing.
And that’s the long-term objective of Rethink Open House.
I’m not talking about another portal that receives MLS data and then builds a business around intercepting buyers. I’m not talking about another website that sends consumer inquiries to agents who pay to receive them. And I’m certainly not talking about giving the largest brokerages control over their own private inventory networks.
I’m talking about a different marketplace. One where the inventory is available to everyone. Where a small brokerage has the same opportunity as a giant brokerage. Where agents maintain their branding and their relationships with clients. Where an interested buyer can communicate directly with the people actually involved in selling the property.
And where the marketplace makes its money by charging affordable, transparent fees for a service, not by collecting referral commissions or taking a percentage of the transaction.
Here’s something else. What if the MLS organizations concentrated on being sources of real estate information? Property records, sales history, market information, and other data professionals use to evaluate properties. Some of that information already exists in county records and other public sources. They could provide useful data services without being the gatekeepers of the marketplace where houses are marketed.
Now, current listing information still has to come from somewhere. County records can’t tell you everything about a house that’s actively for sale. That’s precisely why the marketplace itself needs to maintain accurate, current inventory. ROH intends to become that marketplace.
The MLS could be a place for data. Rethink Open House would be the place for selling houses.
And we need to change something else while we’re at it. The way we show houses.
Today, a buyer can spend hours looking at photos, trying to determine whether a property is worth seeing. They may contact someone through a portal and end up dealing with an agent who has never been inside that particular house. They schedule an appointment, drive across town, walk through the front door, and twenty seconds later realize the house isn’t right for them.
Think about how much time everybody just wasted.
ROH begins with a different premise. The First Showing Online.
Give buyers meaningful video, professional photographs, property information, and an experience that helps them understand the house before they ever schedule a physical showing. Keep that experience together with the listing and the people actually representing the property.
That doesn’t eliminate physical showings. It makes them more purposeful.
And think about what that can mean for the seller. Fewer unnecessary appointments. Less disruption. More control over the presentation of the house. And the ability to decide what services they actually need.
That’s where our phrase comes from. More money in your pocket. Less people in your house.
Notice what I’m not saying. I’m not saying real estate agents should disappear. Some sellers want a full-service agent. Some want help with pricing, negotiations, or contracts. Some want professional photography and video. Some buyers want representation through the entire transaction. That’s fine.
Let the professionals provide their services. Let them explain their value. Let consumers decide which services they want and what they’re willing to pay. But why should the marketplace itself dictate so much of the process or create additional opportunities to monetize the transaction?
Agents should have more control, not less. They should be able to market their listings, build their brands, and serve their clients without unnecessarily surrendering those relationships to third-party platforms.
And the seller? The seller should be the most important person in this discussion. The seller owns the property. The seller creates the inventory. Without that inventory, there is no MLS, no portal traffic, no lead to sell, and no referral to collect.
Now, I’m not going to pretend Rethink Open House currently has anything close to the inventory of the MLS. It doesn’t. And that’s our biggest challenge.
But the MLS didn’t create those houses. It accumulated their listings because agents and property owners continued to place them in the system. And that same inventory can exist in a better marketplace if enough people decide to use it.
That’s the opportunity.
Imagine a national real estate marketplace that doesn’t give special privileges to the largest brokerage. Doesn’t build walls around properties. Doesn’t sell a buyer’s inquiry to a third party. Doesn’t require an agent to surrender control of their branding. And doesn’t need to participate in the transaction to be a profitable business.
A place designed around one objective. Sell the house.
That is where Rethink Open House intends to go. Not merely to compete with the MLS for attention. Not simply to provide another marketing tool alongside it. But to become the primary place people go to find and sell houses.
Will that happen overnight? Of course not. Inventory creates marketplace power, and the MLS has a tremendous advantage. But that advantage exists because people continue to give it their listings. They can begin putting those listings into a different marketplace today, even while continuing to use the MLS.
And if enough people do that, the balance of power begins to change.
To the agents watching this, consider what your business could look like if you controlled your listing, your brand, and your leads. To the sellers, consider what it could mean to have more choices and fewer unnecessary expenses. And to the buyers, imagine having better property information and a direct path to the people selling the house.
The industry keeps arguing about who should control the inventory. I think they’re asking the wrong question.
The question should be, how do we create the best possible marketplace for the people buying and selling houses?
That’s what Rethink Open House is working to accomplish.
The MLS has the inventory. Rethink Open House has the better model. And it’s time to start moving the inventory.

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