According to Anne Marie Decatsye, the CEO of Charlotte-based Canopy MLS, the top 25 MLSs by member count represent more than 1 million subscribers. In comparison, as of late May 2025, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) had roughly 1.45 million members.
While not all of the nation’s real estate agents are Realtors, the data suggests that agents must subscribe to multiple MLSs to effectively do their jobs.
“For me, a push for consolidation is all about helping solve pain points for brokers and firms,” Decatsye said. “I totally agree with their frustration that they have to belong to so many associations of MLSs to run their businesses.”
Single-source solution
As a broker, Scott said that one of the major benefits he sees in MLS consolidation is cost savings. “In Seattle in 1985, there were five MLSs and we went down to one, and we saved $900,000 a year,” Scott said. “But now with technology, I want more from my MLS, and the best way for them to do that is through more consolidation.
“Instead of having, in my case, to pull information from 17 MLSs, I want one source to push the most up-to-date listing information to me.”
According to MLS industry experts, few traditional mergers are currently happening. But Denee Evans, the CEO of the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS), said the industry is still seeing consolidation efforts — they just look a bit different.
“The conversations around mergers have evolved over the last few years. And it is less about ‘should we merge?,’ but really a discussion about what problems are we trying to solve by merging?” Evans said. “So the results of these conversations are different — we might see consolidation or just better collaboration between companies or data shares.”
In the past six months, the industry has seen three major data sharing agreements materialize. These include California Regional MLS and Stellar MLS in July; Central Virginia MLS and Bright MLS in May; and MetroList, the Northern Nevada Regional MLS and Oregon Data Share in February.
As technology continues to evolve, Evans acknowledged that it can be hard for smaller MLSs to stay on top of it and be everything to all subscribers. She said that MLSs need to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
“From there, then the question becomes, do we need to find someone to partner with that can start doing the pieces and parts that we are not great at?” she said. “But the question is not just should we have more consolidation, but what do we need to better serve the marketplace? And in some places, that will be consolidation, but it differs depending on the needs of the local market.”
Protecting their territory
MLS executives, including Tim Dain, the CEO of Minnesota-based NorthstarMLS, say that concerns about legal exposure are a common motivator when considering consolidation.
“I get so many calls from smaller MLSs after they receive their first subpoena. They are usually freaking out a little bit because they don’t have the resources to deal with it and they need help,” Dain said.
But while real estate and MLS professionals want to see more consolidation in the MLS space, there are roadblocks to progress. According to many, a major issue is the territorial attitude of some MLSs.
“In some places, there was a big push for consolidation by large regional MLSs. And that scared everyone, so they put up these little walls and they became protective,” said Kim Everett, the CEO of Western Arizona Realtor Data Exchange. “Some of them don’t even want to do data shares because they are fearful of that consolidation.”
CMLS executives, who help foster many of the consolidation discussions, say that while these negative attitudes may still prevail in some places, things are getting better.
“There is far less protectionism in the conversations people are having today,” Evans said. “I think more boardrooms are letting go of that old argument of ‘I don’t want them coming into my marketplace and doing business.’”
Lack of M&A profitability
Another hurdle is that unlike brokerage M&A transactions — which some business owners use to fund their retirement plans or even their next business ventures — similar deals in the MLS sphere are much more complicated. And executives say there can be little or no return for a sale.
“It is an embarrassingly little amount of money when you consider the billions or hundreds of millions of dollars some of these major consolidations are going for out there right now,” said Brian Donnellan, the president and CEO of Maryland-based Bright MLS.
MLS executives add that there are numerous practical roadblocks that can make consolidations far more complicated for MLSs than other housing industry entities.
“It is not a straightforward process,” Evans said. “Even something as innocuous as the naming of data fields can be an issue. Because in some places, they call a single story a single story, but in others they call it a ranch — it just depends on the local norms. But then you are having to discuss whose name is going to win and appear on the combined database.”
Additionally, in order to see more consolidation, MLS executives say there needs to be some separation between local Realtor associations and their MLSs.
“So many local Realtor associations see their value or their greatest value in providing members with an MLS, and they have not been preparing for the day when either the MLS would be separated from them or go away altogether,” Decatsye said. “It is sad because they do not even know the value they provide as an association outside of the MLS.”
Decatsye doesn’t view the separation of the MLS from the local association as a divorce, but rather as a parent sending an adult child out into the world on their own.
If this does not happen, Decatsye said she doesn’t see a way for more consolidation to happen. But if the separation does occur, Decatsye thinks that a consolidated MLS and local association structure can continue to thrive.
“We at Canopy MLS service 13 Realtor associations — we bought out their MLS business over the years and they have figured out to be an association and not an MLS,” Decatsye said. “These local associations we service are very involved in their communities from a charitable standpoint, a government standpoint and an economic development standpoint.”
She added that the associations also provide members with educational opportunities because they have a far better understanding of how their local market operates than someone sitting in a corporate office in a different part of the state.
Successful arrangement
This is exactly what Jim Yockel, who leads an MLS co-op in upstate New York, has to helped facilitate. “We put together a group and combined our databases into one entity, but we are still independently owned and operated MLSs. We have one single database, one set of rule and one set of data feeds,” Yockel said.
This arrangement has been going on for 15-plus years. So far, Yockel said, everyone is happy — including the tech vendors who are now able to serve one entity instead of many. The co-op currently encompasses 11 MLSs that comprise two-thirds of the geography of New York state.
While Yockel would like to see more arrangements like this in the future, he knows that it depends on the culture of the local market.
“There are some parts of the country where I hear competition is really intense. But in our area, there are a lot of people who believe the MLS database should be broad and regional, but they still want local associations to run the core member functions — and we think what we have is a good way to execute this,” he said.
“I’m not seeing the same conversations in a lot of other places, but as pressures mount on these smaller MLSs, I think we are going to see more of this.”