Tuesdays with Dave | June 10th Edition Happy Tuesday, If you’re wondering why our industry feels like it’s unraveling at the listing seams right now, don’t just look at 2024. You have to go back—way back—to 1996 and then fast-forward to 2014. Because that’s when the National Association of Realtors (NAR), whether knowingly or not, put the keys to the kingdom into someone else’s hands. Let’s start with 1996: NAR partnered with MOVE, Inc. to create what would become Realtor.com. At the time, the internet was still a novelty. NAR’s goal was noble: build an online platform to give Realtors control over listing visibility and provide consumers access to homes for sale. But the structure of the deal gave MOVE operational control. In hindsight, this was a bit like Henry Ford asking someone else to run the assembly line—while still putting his name on the car. Then came 2014, and the second major shift: MOVE was acquired by News Corp, the media giant behind The Wall Street Journal and other influential platforms. This meant that Realtor.com—and by extension, the listing data powered by Realtors across the country—was now under the thumb of a corporation with a different priority: shareholder value. This wasn’t just a business acquisition. It was a tectonic shift. The trust between NAR and its members started to fray as questions mounted: Who really owns the data? Who benefits when listings are sold as leads back to the agents who created them? And how did we, as an industry, lose control over our own inventory? Fast-forward to today: lawsuits, settlements, and MLS fragmentation dominate the headlines. The irony? Much of the chaos stems from the same issue—who controls the listings. And if we trace the path, we end up right back at those foundational deals. Here’s the tough pill to swallow: By prioritizing platform creation over ownership clarity, NAR unintentionally opened the door for today’s lead-scraping, portal-dominating, agent-marginalizing reality. So what now? The industry needs more than another settlement—it needs a strategy. We need bold conversations about reclaiming control, rebuilding trust, and creating tools and agreements that prioritize the professionals doing the work: the agents. And we need to be honest about how we got here, so we don’t make the same mistakes again—just with different tech.
DDD
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COMMAND May RELEASE NOTES https://answers.kw.com/hc/en-us/categories/36605093811347-Release-Notes KWRI Listing Exclusives: https://answers.kw.com/hc/en-us/articles/4436304396947-Create-an-Internal-Listing-in-Command-Keller-Exclusives ________________________________________________________________________ Would you like to talk about what changes you might make in your business through utilizing the leverage of KW Command for your business? Schedule Time with David Donaldson and Get your Growth & Tech Business Evaluation Here: https://calendly.com/daviddonaldson/rtt-growth-conversation If you need a refresher Course to get re-introduced or gain clarity around the Fundamental use of Command register for our July 7th – 11th 2025, Training Sessions Training Here: https://kwregion12training.com Do you need to get some insight on what KW Command is. Learn more: https://getcommand.com/ or https://technology.kw.com/