Louisiana association matches NTREIS payments – for Realtors only
NWLAR’s CEO says the move reaffirms “the MLS as the best point of entry for listings” and signals strong support for “the value of Realtor membership.”
The board of directors of the Northwest Louisiana Association of Realtors (NWLAR) voted on Thursday to double the money its multiple listing service subscribers receive from an MLS incentive program — but only if they are Realtors.
Last week, North Texas Real Estate Information Services (NTREIS), Texas' largest MLS, announced it would be sending checks to eligible brokers who syndicate their listings to portals, while also taking into account the quality and breadth of submitted content, whether listings closed successfully in the MLS and other types of MLS activity.
A day later, NTREIS' largest shareholder, the MetroTex Association of Realtors, announced that MetroTex MLS would match payments distributed this month through the new NTREIS Rewards program.
Another owner comes on board: Now NWLAR, NTREIS's only Louisiana shareholder, will be doing the same — but unlike MetroTex, rewards will only be offered to eligible MLS subscribers who are also Realtors. All but five of NWLAR's 225 broker participants are Realtors, according to Hughes.
"[The NWLAR board members] see it as a strong statement for both the value of MLS as the best point of entry for listings to benefit the consumer, and to support the value of Realtor membership for the advocacy, education, ethics and professionalism we bring to the marketplace and the transaction," NWLAR CEO Scott Hughes told Real Estate News via email.
Payments in the $100s to $1,000s: NTREIS Rewards payments will be sent out to 1,184 eligible brokers, with checks ranging from $175 to five-figure amounts. Hughes said NWLAR did not yet know exactly how much the broker payments from NWLAR will add up to.
"Based on the announced total pool by NTREIS of one million dollars for FY2025 and the knowledge our listings and brokers account for about 3.5% of the total NTREIS listing database, we anticipate a final FY2025 payment around $35,000 for our Realtor Participants who qualify," Hughes said.
"All told NTREIS brokers will receive more than one million in listing rewards and with the match NWLAR Realtor Participants will likely receive more than $70,000 total from both sources."
Partially self-funding? NTREIS operates under a wholesale model, meaning NWLAR resells the NTREIS MLS service to its members under a wholly-owned subsidiary, M.L.S., Inc. The matching funds would come from that corporation.
"We believe ultimately it's going to help fund itself, because the way MLS runs is we need to have the data, we need to have the cooperation, the participation. And so if we can have a system that encourages listing participation, that encourages cooperation," Hughes said last week when discussing the upcoming board vote.
"We believe it's something that not only will we be able to fund, it's actually something our brokers will be happy that we fund as part of our business going forward."