MLS of 2030 will be defined by who controls housing data

The multiple listing service (MLS) was built for a world in which real estate brokers were the primary gatekeepers of housing information. Brokers will remain central to that information ecosystem, but by 2030, AI and the continued evolution of how housing data is collected, distributed and consumed could fundamentally change what it means to be a gatekeeper.MLSs are evolving from systems designed primarily to distribute listings among agents into infrastructure capable of governing, authenticating and moving housing data among consumers, companies and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.Observations from inside and outside traditional MLS leadership point toward the same underlying question; what should an MLS actually be by 2030? That answer is being shaped by a second question that has become increasingly contentious: Who should control how listings enter and move through that infrastructure? Stephen Brobeck — senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America — argues that the consumer interest extends beyond the individual seller’s immediate preferences. “It is in the general consumer interest for there to be total listing transparency — for sellers to be able to market thei...