DeCatsye will be retiring on Dec. 31, 2026, however before she goes, she is making sure Canopy Real estate agent Association no longer manages Canopy MLS or counts on it financially.

- Increased analysis of Real estate agent membership requirements to access the MLS influenced Canopy MLS's choice to invite non-Realtors as customers last fall.

- DeCatsye believes NAR is moving liability to regional MLSs - but states that's "great" given the legal dangers of NAR's MLS policies and its handling of the commission claims.


In 2022, Anne Marie DeCatsye informed her Real estate agent association she would only remain on for 5 more years and presented the management group with an idea experiment: If the association and its multiple listing service died in 5 years, why would it occur?

The team concluded that the MLS would fail "since of the legal landscape and the threat from larger firms starting a nationwide MLS, or the syndication sites doing it," DeCatsye told Real Estate News in an unique interview.

"Why [would] the association close its doors? Because the MLS disappeared. That's not great. There requires to be value in the association outside of the MLS, and we require to be able to articulate that value."

That realization triggered Canopy Real estate agent Association's improvement: Unlike the huge majority of its peers, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based association and its MLS would become independent of each other, and the MLS would welcome non-Realtors.

Two organizations, 2 CEOs

"We have functionally and financially separated the MLS from the association," DeCatsye stated. It's the kind of move some in the industry have been recommending recently.

"Our association board of directors has absolutely nothing to do with MLS policy. The only thing they see are the minutes of the MLS board meetings and the financials as the moms and dad organization."

Completing that separation means that each company will get its own CEO when DeCatsye leaves at the end of next year.

The association will continue to own the MLS, which DeCatsye sees no issue with, but she stresses that Real estate agent associations should no longer manage or be financially depending on an MLS.

"I'm astounded at how numerous [associations that own an MLS] not just are counting on funds coming back to them from the MLS, but they also, one, believe they are the MLS; and 2, they see their value as a Real estate agent association being the MLS, which sort of blows me away," DeCatsye stated.

Membership requireds pose a 'liability threat'

DeCatsye began with Canopy Realtors as its internal legal counsel in 2000 and became CEO in 2001. That legal training has imbued her point of view on how the association and its MLS need to run.

For example, due to the Federal Trade Commission's stance versus anticompetitive tying arrangements in the real estate market, plus the recent flurry of antitrust lawsuits challenging the National Association of Realtors' three-way contract and the requirement by numerous MLSs that subscribers be Real estate agent members, Canopy MLS chose to offer an MLS-only alternative at the end of in 2015 - something other MLSs have also started thinking about or carrying out.

Mandating Real estate agent membership to access the MLS is "a liability risk waiting to happen," DeCatsye said.

Canopy Real estate agents has about 14,000 members, and Canopy MLS has more than 22,000 subscribers; currently, only 125 or so are "MLS-only" non-Realtor customers.

MLSs are more than 'simply a service'

NAR has actually long characterized Realtor-affiliated MLSs as a service of their associations. By that step, associations have a right to need membership to access the MLS. But DeCatsye objects to the idea that the MLS is a simple "service" and insists the MLS "has grown up."

"When you include on the tools and the training and the technology and the information licensing and data stability and all the things that we do on the MLS side that have nothing to do with the Real estate agent association, ... to state, 'Oh, it's just a service of the Real estate agent association' is a total injustice to what an MLS actually does," she stated.

'Local discretion' shifts risk to MLSs

Regarding NAR's effort to reduce the legal risks of its policies, DeCatsye believes the trade group is not being totally transparent about what that suggests for MLSs.

"I have actually heard [NAR CEO Nykia Wright] state 'de-risking our portfolio' numerous times, and then she began saying 'that doesn't mean we're moving the threat to the MLS' - and I do not think that's real," DeCatsye said.

Leaving policies to "regional discretion," such as the application of NAR's postponed marketing exemption, immediately increases liability for regional companies, according to DeCatsye.

"It is being shifted to the local MLS, and if the MLS is owned by a Real estate agent association like ours, the entire company is at threat," she stated. Some MLSs have actually simply decided out of executing the policy.

Time for NAR to hand off MLS policy oversight?

But DeCatsye says the liability shift is "fine" by her, considered that NAR-driven policies were at the root of class-action claims nationwide.

"I would rather base on our own two feet and not be reliant on NAR MLS policy, since that is what got us all in problem," DeCatsye stated.

She thinks it's time for another organization to take the reins on MLS policy regulation or MLS best practices. That might be the Council of MLSs, the Real Estate Standards Organization, the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials, state real estate commissions, or some new or revamped entity.

"I sure would rather be regulated by our property commission than the DOJ," she said.

NAR lobbyists need to have 'done more'

Echoing the sentiment of some big brokers and other market leaders, DeCatsye thinks NAR needs to have done a much better task of handling the commissions claims.

"If NAR's legal team had actually done more to inform members of Congress about what was taking place, there might have been a federal legislative intervention into a few of the lawsuits that were assaulting the industry," she said.

"The settlement amounts are simply overwhelming, and I don't think a lot of members of Congress have any idea."

Leaving 'Real estate agent' behind?

DeCatsye thinks the day might come when Canopy Realtors will be Canopy Real Estate Professionals rather - but it's not what she's pressing for.

"My mom was a Real estate agent," she said. "I still strongly believe in the function of the Real estate agent. I believe in the Code of Ethics.