There’s some serious drama happening in the world of real estate—and no, we aren’t talking about how Gen Z is experiencing some intense homebuyers’ remorse. This is something that affects everyone, whether you already own a home or wish to one day. That’s because it involves the accessibility and transparency surrounding the current and future houses on the market. And real estate experts are desperately asking you to pay attention.To put it in layman’s terms: A fight has broken out amongst realtors and brokerage firms over a policy put in place by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) called the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), which requires that brokers and agents list the properties they represent on the MLS (multiple listing services) centralized database of real estate listings within one business day of publicly putting them on the market. This policy was created in the hope that “pocket” listings, which are private home listings, would decrease and there would be more competition in the public marketplace for home buyers and sellers going forward, according to Realtor.com. Related StoriesSome agents, brokerages, and real estate aggregators, like Zillow, want to keep the CCP in place, arguing that it provides more opportunities for sellers to sell their homes at better prices, and for buyers to see everything that’s out on the market in a timely manner.However, there are other agents and brokerage firms, such as Compass, that are actively lobbying against this policy, trying to get the NAR to get rid of it altogether. These firms argue that this rule takes choice away from sellers, forcing them to list their houses in ways they may not want and compromising their privacy. Of course, this issue isn’t so black-and-white, and the NAR has made recent changes to the CCP that some realtors argue aren’t in the best interest of the consumer—while others think they are steps in the right direction. As the intensity around this conversation continues to build, there’s a lot to know. But don’t worry—we broke it down below, and looked to three real estate experts to help us do so.Key Things You Need to KnowNational Association of Realtors. This is an American trade association for those in the real estate industry. It is the governing body for all things real estate. Clear Cooperation Policy. Put in place by the NAR in 2020, it requires all brokers to submit listings to the MLS within one business day of publicly marketing the property.Multiple Listing Services. A database created by real estate agents to share details about homes and properties for sale in a particular region.Jump to:What Is the Clear Cooperation Policy?To understand the CCP, you must first know about the multiple listing service (MLS). The MLS is a tool that helps “listing brokers find cooperative brokers working with buyers to help sell their clients’ homes,” according to the NAR site. There are over 500 MLSs out there for brokers to use. Since these are private databases, each MLS is maintained and paid for by real estate professionals in order for this information to be provided to the public free-of-charge in most cases. Each individual MLS has to abide by NAR's policies, but it’s able to implement said policies in its own ways with its own rules. As Kori Sassower, principal agent at The Kori Sassower Team, explains it, NAR is like the country of the United States and the MLSs are the individual states. The CCP, a policy put in place by the NAR in 2020, requires all brokers to submit all listings to the MLS within one business day of publicly marketing the property. This allows for all members of the MLS to see this property for sale. “The Clear Cooperation Policy is saying that if a house is being marketed publicly for sale, it needs to be added to the MLS database so that all of the market participants can see it,” Jared Antin, the managing director at Elegran Real Estate, explains. “Then the MLS feeds that out to all of the real estate aggregators, so Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, things like that.”Basically, there‘s no trial-run for a house that‘s to be publicly listed for sale. With the CCP, a broker can‘t market a property on their own site or elsewhere before publicly listing it in order to get the word out—it must input the property into the MLS within that one business day.According to the 2020 Clear Cooperation Policy, agents need to report new home listings to the MLS within one business day of receiving them, unless the sellers wishes for it to be an exempt listing.What Is the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers Policy?Because there’s this controversy in the real estate industry around this policy, NAR recently added a new policy to the existing CCP. On March 25, 2025, NAR introduced the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers Policy. This new addition will work alongside the CCP “to provide sellers and their agents more options and choice when marketing a property, while also supporting fair housing by providing buyers and their agents with equal access to important MLS property information,” the NAR site states. It must be implemented by September 30.More importantly, this additional policy created two exempt listing options for sellers: office exclusive and delayed marketing. Office exclusive exempt listing. Sassower breaks it down: “The office exclusive exempt listing is saying that I’m only going to market a house to people in my brokerage.” This is apparently something that already happened within brokerages anyway, as it’s a hard rule to police. For example, if Sassower, who’s a Compass-affiliated agent, has a house that in four days she’s going to publicly list (as in, enter into the MLS), and she knows that one of her fellow Compass agents is looking for a house for their client, she’s allowed to tell them about her upcoming house listing in that time frame. Now that this exemption is listed in this additional policy to the CCP, Sassower can get a signed agreement that this listing is an office exclusive, and she can tell every agent within Compass that this is something that’s coming on the market. However, she still can’t market it publicly until she’s ready to add it to the MLS.Delayed marketing exempt listing. This exemption requires brokers to still put the listing in the MLS, but it doesn’t allow for public marketing through an Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feed and syndication. An IDX feed is the software used by real estate professionals to put MLS listings to their sites. Zillow, Trulia, and other real estate aggregators use syndication to add home listings to their sites. Each MLS gets to determine the length of this delayed marketing window itself. Basically, this allows the seller and their agent to market the listing in a manner consistent to what the seller wants, but it also limits the number of brokers and agent who will see the listing when it’s first put in the MLS. Sassower explains this exemption as being similar to a restaurant’s soft-launch, while others criticize it as not being consumer-friendly for its lack of transparency.This additional policy, like the CCP in general, is also quite controversial. Sassower calls it a step in the right direction and Antin feels that it’s modernizing the CCP, but James Dwiggins, a third-generation real estate professional and co-CEO of NextHome, a progressive real estate franchise, disagrees. Dwiggins argues that these exemptions will make it even harder for homebuyers to find homes in an already tough housing market. This policy was created in the hope that "pocket" listings, which are private home listings, would decrease and there would be more competition among the public marketplace for home buyers and sellers.The Controversy Around the Clear Cooperation PolicyYou now have a good chunk of the background information about the CCP, what it requires brokers to do, and how it has very recently changed. It's time to get into why this division is taking place and what it could mean for homeowners if NAR did eventually get rid of the CCP.Why Do Some Brokerages Want to Get Rid of the CCP?The main reasons some brokers and big brokerages, such as Compass, say they are lobbying against the CCP are because they think brokers, agents, and sellers should be able to have a greater say in how and where their listings are marketed; and they believe sellers who wish for more privacy in their listing—because they're a celebrity, for example—should be allowed that option.With the current rules and regulations outlined in the CCP, including this latest Multiple Listing Options for Sellers Policy, brokers and therefore sellers are required by the NAR to list their homes in the MLS. Sassower says, “We just want the ability to market the house before it goes out to everybody else.” Otherwise, the day a house goes on the MLS is the day the broker is able to start marketing it. Once a house looks like it’s reduced in price, it tends to make people think that they can get it for an even better price and the sellers are desperate.—Kori SassowerThis inability to pre-market a house also means, according to Sassower, that brokers are unable to get a good sense of the pricing. If brokers are allowed to pre-market a home privately before having to do so publicly, then they’ll be able to get feedback from potential buyers within their brokerages that a home may be overpriced. When they do finally decide to market the home publicly, they can do so at the proper price without having to show any reductions. “Once a house looks like it’s reduced in price, it tends to make people think that they can get it for an even better price and the sellers are desperate,” Sassower says. “It kind of gets rid of all that negative connotation if you start out at the right price.”Essentially, the thought is that if brokerages can’t pre-market a home, they aren’t doing right by their sellers. Though taking away the CCP would reduce the number of homes available to the public through the MLS, Sassower argues that “anybody can have a Compass account,” or go to other brokerage sites to view their houses for sale. Sassower can understand why small brokerages aren't in favor of getting rid of the CCP, but she disagrees, arguing, “All we’re doing is expanding the choice for buyers to be able to see the houses before they come on the market.“Out of a total 2.72 million home transactions Zillow analyzed, around 54,400 were “pocket” listings that weren't reported on the MLS.Why Do Other Brokerages Want to Keep the CCP?The brokerages and agents who want to keep the CCP argue that the MLS system allows for the most transparency in the housing market for buyers and sellers. According to Antin, repealing the CCP—repealing this central repository of information—would show a regression in the housing market. By not requiring brokerages to add listings to the MLS, a lot of visibility would be taken away from the consumer, and brokerages with smaller inventory would suffer. Dwiggins actually dislikes the office exclusive exemption policy addition to the CCP because of this lack of visibility too. “It’s essentially a way to try and find a buyer within the brokerage represented by one of their other agents, and double end the deal before working with other agents at other firms,” he says. “The brokerage would make both sides of the commission versus only half.” Completely taking away the CCP would make this even easier for the brokerages with a larger inventory to do. Those agents for keeping the CCP also argue that a seller wouldn’t get as many eyes on their listing if the broker wasn’t required to report it to the MLS. Fewer eyes means potentially extending the selling timeframe of your home, Antin says, which means leaving money on the table by not getting the highest potential price. What Would Getting Rid of the CCP Mean for Buyers and Sellers? As Sassower points out, you as a seller would have more flexibility and freedom around the way your house is listed and marketed if the NAR was to completely get rid of the CCP. You’d be able to have a sort of test-run with the pre-market pricing, there would be more potential for privacy, and you’d simply be given more choice as the seller.However, you as a buyer wouldn’t see every house on the market as easily as you do now. You’d have to go to different brokerage sites to see what listings are there, as there would be more exclusivity in the selling process. This would make a rough housing market even tougher thanks to the lack of visibility across the board.The monetary risks of leaving money on the table by reducing the potential buyers who see the listing are also very real. According to a study by Zillow (which is on the side of keeping the CCP), homes that were sold off the MLS sold for, on average, $4,975 less than those listed on the MLS. This figure varies state by state—listings in California that were sold off the MLS made $30,000 less, on average, than those sold on the MLS. Another Zillow study found that selling homes off the MLS disproportionately affects people of color. In ZIP codes where the majority of households are Black, Hispanic, Asian American and Pacific Islander, or Native American, off-MLS houses typically sold for 3.2 percent less than houses on the MLS, which is more than double the 1.2 percent loss in neighborhoods that are a majority white. “This equates to $9,850 lost per off-market listing in communities of color, compared to a loss of around $3,700 per home in majority white neighborhoods,” the study states. Homes in Hispanic communities sell for 4 percent less when sold off the MLS, which comes to about $13,730. Homes in Black communities sell for 3.1 percent less when sold off the MLS, which comes to about $5,576. There are points to be understood on each side of this controvery, but at House Beautiful, we feel it’s necessary to provide you with all the information possible so you can stay informed and know how all of this is going to affect you—whatever happens. Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.