After nixing IDX, Hoby Hanna says whole industry should follow
Howard Hanna’s CEO says the MLS has value, but he thinks data sharing should be a “business decision,” not a mandate, and he believes the CCP was “a mistake.”
As CEO of the largest independent real estate brokerage in the U.S., Howard "Hoby" Hanna IV said he tries to take a bird's-eye view approach to decision-making.
Howard Hanna Real Estate Services is "a family business made up of family businesses," Hanna said during a recent wide-ranging discussion on the Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast. But from the consolidation movement that is reshaping the real estate industry to the portal wars and the emergence of new technology, a lot has changed since his grandparents founded the brokerage in 1957.
"I'm always trying to think about, is this a short-term decision that only benefits the short term? Or is this something that, we'll look back, and it continues growth and sustainability for the next generation of whomever wants to lead our company."
A reality check on new tech: After being involved with his family's firm for over three decades, Hanna is somewhat immune to bold proclamations about potential industry shakeups — including those pertaining to new tech.
"I see the people that say, 'Oh, this technology is going to change everything.' And I'm like, 'You know how many times in my 33 years I've heard that technology is going to replace the agent, change everything?'"
New tech can bring about improvements, "but there's some hits and some misses and some mistakes," he said. "I like when the outside capital comes in, because sometimes other people's money can improve the efficiency of what we're doing, as opposed to us putting it there."
CCP a 'mistake': Among the industry changes of the past decade: the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), which NAR adopted in 2019 and elected to keep last spring. Some established brokerages pushed for the policy "to try to hurt somebody else's model, as opposed to being creative and innovative," Hanna said, adding that he thinks "Clear Cooperation was a mistake."
"There was always gamesmanship that played in the industry," Hanna said — and it's the portals "who won" in the wake of the CCP.
Where NAR can add value: Hanna believes NAR has other opportunities, however, to help "raise the standard" for agents.
"Maybe not everybody should be called a Realtor," Hanna said, suggesting a tiered system in which top-performing agents pay their full dues to the association while agents with fewer transactions pay less but enlist a broker to be their sponsor.
"I think, unfortunately, there's so many models that are like, let's have as many agents as we can," Hanna said. "I think that hurts our whole industry."
A cloudy future for IDX: Howard Hanna began pulling listings from IDX three years ago — and the "more and more I think about it, my mind goes to, yeah — we should get rid of IDX," Hanna said when asked about its future in the industry.
"I still think the MLS is valuable," he added. "I think the MLS should be that B2B portal, that sort of like Bloomberg terminal — you can have access to everything I'm willing to share."
But brokers should be able to share data "as a business decision — not because it's a mandate of belonging to a trade association."
A national MLS? Amid the wider industry debate about listing access, a handful of MLSs have announced plans to expand services nationwide. Though skeptical about those moves, Hanna expressed interest in the idea of statewide MLSs. "Could you go to 50 feeds?" he wondered.
The wider debate about MLS consolidation is "good" and likely to continue, he said, "but I don't know that anybody has an end plan, and I don't know that anybody's strong enough to be the national MLS."