Josh Ries looks at why and how systems designed to help agents quietly hand over control to third-party portals can take back control.
About a year ago, I met James Rowlett on TikTok.
What immediately stood out wasn’t the polished delivery or trendy hook. It was the fact that he came from a completely outside of the real estate industry and had no patience for the industry’s group think. His views felt grounded, uncomfortably honest, and different from most real estate commentators.
If you know me, you know that I believe our industry needs more outside voices. Laurette was just that person.
As I continued to watch his content, a theme began to emerge. While the industry debates the symptoms, the lawsuits, and which companies are the current villains, few people talk about the root cause that made this all possible in the first place: IDX.
To understand why Laurette’s perspective is important here, you need to understand where he’s coming from.
Who is James Rowlett and why his perspective is different?
Prior to his career in real estate, he spent 15 years as a mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry, working on deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico. His engineering career disappeared almost overnight in 2015, when oil prices plummeted from about $100 a barrel to the mid-$20s.
Real estate was not part of the master plan. It was a temporary source of income while they waited for the oil industry to recover.
That was never the case.
In his second year of real estate sales, Mr. Rowlett has closed over $10.8 million in transactions. That brief hiatus turned into a full-fledged career. Now 56 years old, he has spent more than nine years in the real estate industry and brings something that many industry veterans lack. It’s the experience of operating inside a system where data, infrastructure, and unintended consequences really matter.
This background is why IDX struck him as a structural failure rather than a marketing inconvenience.
IDX started as a good idea
IDX was originally designed to help agents and brokers share products, increase seller exposure, and make it easier for buyers to search inventory online. At the time, that logic made sense. Cooperation benefits consumers, and technology can help distribute lists more efficiently.
The problem wasn’t the idea. The problem was the execution.
Access to IDX was widely distributed with little consideration for how the data could be repackaged, monetized, and weaponized at scale. The industry treated property, the most valuable digital asset in real estate, as a commodity rather than a physical product.
As Rowlett says, the results were not immediate, but they were inevitable.
How third-party portals filled the void
Once the IDX feed became widely available with minimal restrictions, third-party portals stepped in and did exactly the same as well-funded technology companies. They built consumer brands, dominated search results, and established themselves as the starting point for real estate transactions.
Agents were unwittingly funding this transition by providing information to the very systems that would later sell them access.
Rowlett often uses a gold rush analogy to explain what happened. Money was never gold. It was about selling tools, supplies, and access to people who were going after it. Agents became prospectors. The platform has become a merchant.
And the industry never closed its doors.
Why does the industry keep talking about the wrong things?
Today’s headlines focus on lawsuits, corporate infighting, and which big companies will gain or lose market share. These stories create noise, but avoid uncomfortable questions.
How did we allow the core data that powers real estate to be controlled by companies whose incentives are not aligned with those of agents and consumers?
Rowlett believes that this obsession with surface-level conflict is a distraction. If IDX had been managed thoughtfully from the beginning, much of what the industry is responding to today would not exist at this scale.
This is not a criticism of any particular company. It is about recognizing that the system itself has created an environment of consolidation, rent-seeking, and agent dis-leverage.
What will happen if IDX reform is not implemented?
Rowlett warns that without meaningful IDX reform, the industry risks replacing one dominant gatekeeper with another. When scale and data control centralize power, the illusion of choice disappears.
Independent brokerages, the influence of local MLSs, and agency-owned brands all have a harder time sustaining themselves when their access to consumer attention is dependent on a small number of platforms built on shared listing data.
Once this change is complete, it will be nearly impossible to regain control.
Why agents need to be considerate even if they feel unaffected
Many agents feel that IDX is an abstract industry issue that doesn’t impact their day-to-day operations. Mr Rowlett disagrees.
Higher lead costs, lower organic visibility, reliance on paid platforms, and regular pipeline resets all go back to how consumer traffic was redirected from agents to intermediaries.
This is not a matter of hustle and bustle. It’s not a question of skill. It’s a system problem.
And the system will not be repaired automatically.
Conversations the industry continues to avoid
Rowlett isn’t looking for outrage or a hunt for villains. He wants accountability and long-term thinking.
IDX reform is not about punishing success or rolling back technology. It’s about recognizing that the industry has given up influence without understanding the consequences, and now must decide whether to continue operating within someone else’s ecosystem.
Until that conversation takes place, the rest is just noise.
Josh Ries is a real estate agent and lead generation consultant. You can connect with him on TikTok and Instagram.
