RESO Spring Conference
Last month, I attended the RESO 2025 Spring Conference, where I connected with colleagues across the country and participated in important conversations about real estate standards.
I was also fortunate to host the Broker Spotlight: Why Brokers Need RESO, and What Brokers Want From Us panel alongside Nina Dosanjh of Vanguard Properties. We interviewed James Dwiggins, CEO of NextHome and one of the most vocal proponents of broker cooperation and competition in the real estate industry, about the importance of the MLS and accessible data. James underscored the value of the MLS and articulated why access to data is vital for buyers and sellers.
Here are my top three takeaways from the panel:
Consumer Trust is Everything
In the midst of lawsuits and policy changes, it’s easy to get lost and forget about who we actually serve. James argues the industry needs to think strategically about how we are going to serve our customer, which is buyers and sellers. If we lose sight of that, then we’re losing consumer trust and the industry as we know it will not exist.
Fragmented Systems Don’t Work
James argued that a watershed moment in residential real estate was when IDX launched. This created a marketplace where every agent, broker and brokerage had the ability to display almost all listings available in a market, making more information available to consumers. By doing that, James believes, we created the greatest marketplace in the world.
If we were to take that information away, we would create systems that are fragmented. You’d have to go to 10 different sources to try and find the information you need, and you might not even find what you are looking for. This would impact comps, appraisals and the ability to know the true value of real estate. Not only do fragmented marketplaces hurt buyers and sellers, but they also can result in fair housing issues and redlining.
We Need to Rethink Seller Privacy
James doesn’t buy the argument that protecting seller privacy is a reason not to list a property on the MLS because there are ways to protect seller privacy within the existing systems. For example, you can remove an address in the MLS for privacy purposes, street view of the house is in the public domain (hence why Google Street View exists) and folks with private properties concerned about privacy typically have gates where you can’t see the house.
James states that tools to protect privacy exist within the MLS but that agents and brokers might not know how to use them. It’s up to MLSs to educate subscribers on how to remove an address in the system and ensure they know what is and isn’t possible in the MLS as they have conversations with sellers about privacy. If you have questions about protecting your client’s privacy, please reach out to IRES.
I always walk away from conversations like these with new ideas and new frameworks to think about some of the key issues facing our industry. James’ insights shed light on the value of the MLS and place our work in a larger context. If you’d like to hear more of what James had to say, you can watch the full panel discussion here.
IRES MLS: Come Home to Colorado 