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 economically.

- Increased analysis of Real estate agent subscription requirements to access the MLS influenced Canopy MLS's decision to welcome non-Realtors as subscribers last fall.

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


In 2022, Anne Marie DeCatsye informed her Real estate agent association she would only stay on for five more years and provided the management group with an idea experiment: If the association and its numerous listing service died in five years, why would it take place?

The group concluded that the MLS would stop working "because of the legal landscape and the risk from larger companies beginning a national 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 good. There needs to be value in the association beyond the MLS, and we need to be able to articulate that worth."

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

Two organizations, two CEOs

"We have functionally and financially separated the MLS from the association," DeCatsye said. It's the kind of relocation some in the market have actually been recommending in current 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 means 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, but she highlights that Real estate agent associations ought to no longer control or be financially depending on an MLS.

"I'm surprised at the number of [associations that own an MLS] not just are counting on funds coming back to them from the MLS, however they also, one, think they are the MLS; and 2, they see their worth as a Real estate agent association being the MLS, which kind of blows me away," DeCatsye stated.

Membership requireds pose a 'liability danger'

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

For instance, due to the Federal Trade Commission's stance versus anticompetitive connecting arrangements in the realty market, plus the recent flurry of antitrust claims challenging the National Association of Realtors' three-way agreement and the requirement by lots of MLSs that subscribers be Real estate agent members, Canopy MLS decided to provide an MLS-only choice at the end of last year - something other MLSs have likewise begun considering or carrying out.

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

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

MLSs are more than 'simply a service'

NAR has long identified Realtor-affiliated MLSs as a service of their associations. By that measure, associations have a right to require subscription to access the MLS. But DeCatsye objects to the idea that the MLS is a mere "service" and firmly insists the MLS "has matured."

"When you include on the tools and the training and the innovation and the information licensing and information integrity 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 simply a service of the Real estate agent association' is a total injustice to what an MLS truly does," she said.

'Local discretion' shifts run the risk of to MLSs

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

"I have actually heard [NAR CEO Nykia Wright] state 'de-risking our portfolio' several times, and then she started saying 'that does not indicate we're shifting the danger to the MLS' - and I don't believe that holds true," DeCatsye said.

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

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

Time for NAR to hand off MLS policy oversight?

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

"I would rather base on our own 2 feet and not be reliant on NAR MLS policy, since that is what got us all in difficulty," DeCatsye said.

She believes it's time for another company to take the reins on MLS policy guideline 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 property commissions, or some brand-new or revamped entity.

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

NAR lobbyists ought to have 'done more'

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

"If NAR's legal group had done more to educate members of Congress about what was happening, there might have been a federal legislative intervention into a few of the suits that were assaulting the market," she said.

"The settlement amounts are just mind-blowing, 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 promoting.

"My mommy was a Real estate agent," she stated. "I still firmly think in the role of the Real estate agent. I think in the Code of Ethics.