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 depends on it financially.

- Increased examination of Real estate agent subscription requirements to access the MLS influenced Canopy MLS's decision to invite non-Realtors as customers last fall.

- DeCatsye thinks NAR is shifting liability to regional MLSs - however says that's "great" provided the legal risks of NAR's MLS policies and its handling of the commission suits.


In 2022, Anne Marie DeCatsye told her Real estate agent association she would just remain on for 5 more years and presented the management group with a thought experiment: If the association and its numerous listing service passed away in five years, why would it occur?

The group concluded that the MLS would fail "because of the legal landscape and the danger from bigger firms starting a national MLS, or the syndication sites doing it," DeCatsye informed Real Estate News in an exclusive interview.

"Why [would] the association close its doors? Because the MLS disappeared. That's bad. There requires to be value in the association outside of the MLS, and we need to be able to articulate that worth."

That realization sparked Canopy Real estate agent Association's change: Unlike the large majority of its peers, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based association and its MLS would end up being independent of each other, and the MLS would welcome non-Realtors.

Two organizations, two CEOs

"We have functionally and economically separated the MLS from the association," DeCatsye said. It's the type of relocation some in the industry have been suggesting in the last few years.

"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 conferences and the financials as the parent organization."

Completing that separation implies that each organization 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, however she highlights that Real estate agent associations must no longer control or be economically depending on an MLS.

"I'm surprised at how many [associations that own an MLS] not just are depending on funds returning to them from the MLS, but they also, one, think they are the MLS; and 2, they see their value as a Real estate agent association being the MLS, which type of blows me away," DeCatsye said.

Membership mandates pose a 'liability danger'

DeCatsye began with Canopy Realtors as its internal legal counsel in 2000 and ended up being CEO in 2001. That legal training has actually imbued her perspective on how the association and its MLS should run.

For instance, because of the Federal Trade Commission's stance against anticompetitive connecting arrangements in the real estate market, plus the recent flurry of antitrust suits challenging the National Association of Realtors' three-way arrangement and the requirement by many MLSs that subscribers be Real estate agent members, Canopy MLS chose to use an MLS-only option at the end of last year - something other MLSs have likewise started considering or implementing.

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

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

MLSs are more than 'just a service'

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

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

'Local discretion' shifts run the risk of to MLSs

Regarding NAR's effort to decrease the legal threats of its policies, DeCatsye believes the trade group is not being fully transparent about what that indicates for MLSs.

"I have actually heard [NAR CEO Nykia Wright] say 'de-risking our portfolio' several times, and then she began stating 'that does not mean we're moving the threat to the MLS' - and I don't think that holds true," DeCatsye stated.

Leaving policies to "regional discretion," such as the implementation of NAR's delayed marketing exemption, automatically increases liability for regional companies, according to DeCatsye.

"It is being moved to the regional MLS, and if the MLS is owned by a Real estate agent association like ours, the whole organization is at risk," she stated. Some MLSs have merely decided out of executing the policy.

Time for NAR to hand off MLS policy oversight?

But DeCatsye states the liability shift is "great" by her, offered that NAR-driven policies were at the root of class-action claims across the country.

"I would rather stand on our own 2 feet and not be reliant on NAR MLS policy, because that is what got all of us in problem," DeCatsye said.

She thinks it's time for another company to take the reins on MLS policy guideline or MLS best practices. That could be the Council of MLSs, the Real Estate Standards Organization, the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials, state realty commissions, or some brand-new or revamped entity.

"I sure would rather be managed by our genuine estate commission than the DOJ," she said.

NAR lobbyists should have 'done more'

Echoing the belief of some big brokers and other market leaders, DeCatsye believes NAR ought to have done a better job of handling the commissions lawsuits.

"If NAR's legal group had done more to educate members of Congress about what was taking place, there might have been a federal legislative intervention into some of the lawsuits that were attacking the industry," she stated.

"The settlement amounts are just mind-boggling, and I don't think a lot of members of Congress have any idea."

Leaving 'Real estate agent' behind?

DeCatsye thinks the day could come when Canopy Realtors will be Canopy Real Estate Professionals rather - however it's not what she's promoting.

"My mommy was a Real estate agent," she stated. "I still securely believe in the function of the Real estate agent. I believe in the Code of Ethics.