TheRealtyAlliance

10/24/2025

“What Dan Troup and his team at the Broker Public Portal have built for MLSs and brokers makes it possible to move faster, smarter, and with more confidence. It’s a shift that accelerates innovation across the entire industry.” -- Justin Lundy

10/23/2025

I feel so grateful for Craig [Cheatham] delivering that message both then and now. Some things on the list are very granular. Some of them are big picture that you should always do. You will probably, if you're doing your job well, never check off the list--such as he talked about, listening to your brokers, having frequent meetings, like some of those things. Hopefully you're never going to say, 'Job done.'" -- Rebecca Jensen

https://web.archive.org/web/20131014000050/http://clareity.com/eliminating-mls-and-broker-conflict/

10/20/2025

"One of the frustrations back in 2013 that had brokers white hot was when they would ask their MLS for data to which they were entitled but would encounter all kinds of red tape and extra fees and often would end up being told 'no' at the end of the process. Then these brokers would watch outsiders, non-participant tech companies, seemingly ask for the same thing and, from the broker perspective, the outsiders would sail through the process.

Broker participants should not be at a disadvantage to outsiders when it comes to getting MLS data for legitimate purposes -- and it’s still going on -- sometimes because some MLSs just refuse to go to the trouble of supporting their brokers in new ways but perhaps more often it is because the feeds and licenses for data are out of date and incompatible with current use cases that are different than MLSs anticipated decades ago.

Many MLSs still restrict brokers by offering data licenses tied to narrow, outdated use cases. As a result, broker technology teams are forced to stitch together a patchwork of IDX, VOW, and BBO feeds—constantly balancing compliance against long-standing rules that don’t reflect today’s needs.

What happens? Innovative broker tools built to give agents cutting-edge capabilities never make it to market because they can’t be squared with current licensing terms. Instead of being empowered, broker tech ends up hamstrung by the very system that was intended to support them.

Our MLSs need a new tier of licensing—a true set of enterprise options—that both accommodates modern use cases and safeguards the cooperative model. And MLSs need to act right away to figure out ways to say 'yes' to broker requests for data that don’t fit the old mold. Right now, too many essentially are saying 'no.'" -- Craig Cheatham

10/17/2025

"Change has arrived ... our brokers are reminding us of that. That concept of broker engagement Craig [Cheatham] mentioned, both formal governance and 'informal governance.' I refer to those as 'listening posts.' Polish up some listening posts and get out in front of your brokers and agents because their needs are different every day." -- Matthew Consalvo Photo credit: A.J. Canaria

10/13/2025

"Portals get a lot of headlines but serve as the source of a whole lot less business than they would have you believe. And with the significant growth in their market power since 2013, we all are seeing what we might even call abuses on their part. First, if your MLS is contemplating working some kind of deal with one of these outside portals, please pause and consider how your brokers would feel about that. We’ve already skewed and harmed our industry with how some of these portals work. Think long term about the good of the industry, the good of brokers, the good of agents and ultimately the good of consumers.
Along those lines, think about if MLSs and brokers came together to build an additional option in the marketplace -- for the good of consumers and brokers and agents. Let’s call it the Broker Public Portal – or even cribio. Do you think your brokers would want you to support that project? Do you think your brokers invested time and money to build it, only for your MLS to find an excuse not to participate? Remember, brokers did not support public-facing websites being authorized as a “core” MLS service, but since that accidentally slipped through into NAR MLS policy, if the MLS hosts a public-facing listing advertising site, brokers expect that the BPP will power it.
Follow the trajectory of our industry if this alternative is not introduced as an additional option -- brokers do not like where that leads. You as MLS leaders have the opportunity to bring more competition to the portal space that only will improve the choices for consumers and agents and brokers. Please let us as an industry once again shoot ourselves in the foot by not seizing this opportunity. It is likely your participants before long would tell you the monthly cost is some of the best money they spend." -- Craig Cheatham

10/09/2025

"[The Broker Public Portal/cribio] represents everyone in the industry, represents all brokers, and hopefully is an easy-to-spell, easy-to-remember place that will have all the listings. We get to define what Cribio offers to the consumer, and we’re just starting down that path now. When you don’t know any consumers, you have to advertise. The good thing is, we do have the consumer. We represent the agents and brokerages that represent 90 percent of the transactions out there today. We can create an agent experience where they can start saving searches, finding properties and truly collaborating with their buyers and sellers on the platform.” -- Dan Troup of Broker Public Portal/Cribio

10/06/2025

"I was surprised at how many of the items [on the 2013 list] still apply today. I think there would be some small additions and deletions, but it’s more about how some on the list would have felt more important and urgent for brokers back then and how others feel more important and urgent today.
I would love to say we could take several things off that list because those friction points have been removed in all MLSs … but I can’t. I asked a several people in the industry in the past several days to look at that list from 2013 and tell me their thoughts. All of them thought it still is a very good list.
I do believe that brokers would tell you that as important, if not more so, than anything on that list, is reaching out to your brokers and building authentic, partnership, relationships of trust.
But please also address all the issues on the list.
We’re working on an updated list but I expect it will be mostly the same content, just more condensed. I would guess that will come out within six months or so. Right now brokers outside The Realty Alliance are contributing to the list, and The Realty Alliance will wrap up the work on the list and then release it." -- Craig Cheatham
https://web.archive.org/web/20131014000050/http://clareity.com/eliminating-mls-and-broker-conflict/

10/03/2025

"The lawsuit settlement created more work for agents, not less. Why would anyone think they should be paid less after the lawsuit? They are not working fewer hours or performing fewer tasks or taking any fewer, near-heroic measures to save transactions after the lawsuit. Real estate professionals were earning their pay before the lawsuit settlement, and they are earning it now." -- Craig Cheatham

10/01/2025

"Cribio is the next big thing. There’s a natural flow to the real estate transaction, and that is a primary goal of this project — to create the online experience that consumers are seeking that matches the natural flow of the transaction. Brokers and agents have been burned by vendors turning on them. Sometimes that’s just a matter of mission creep, where all of a sudden they’re forgotten. Sometimes the vendor just sells out, and next thing they know, the vendor that was on their side is now competing directly with them.

People want to know who owns this this — and because Cribio is an organic industry cooperative between the brokerage community and the MLS — they say, ‘Okay, we will have the ultimate user group continually providing input and steering this project to keep it relevant, to keep it functional, to keep it serving our needs. And it’s never going to turn on us.'” -- Craig Cheatham

Contact [email protected] to find out how to get your MLS up and going with the Broker Public Portal.

09/30/2025

Ask your MLS to sign up to participate in the Broker Public Portal right away!

Since its founding in 2014, the Broker Public Portal has worked hand-in-hand with MLSs to aggregate data and streamline access for consumers.

09/29/2025

"With broker budgets so tight these days, they probably are even more vigorous in their belief that MLSs should not be bundling products in their fees that brokers buy themselves. Showing services and a short list of other things that only work if most of the market utilizes them are the exception. Brokers don’t like paying for a product or service themselves, only to have the MLS buy a competing product for them and their competitors with their fees. And sometimes the horse the MLS bets on ends up coming up lame and the market is stuck paying for an inferior product for the life of the contract with the MLS. MLS-purchased products and services for everyone also kill all brokers’ ability to differentiate themselves from their competition. And we all know utilization rates on MLS-wide purchases of products and services is very low, anyway." -- Craig Cheatham at

09/26/2025

Ask your MLS to sign up for cribio as soon as possible!

The Broker Public Portal has relaunched as Cribio, a search platform with a consumer-first mandate that shares data back to its broker and MLS owners.