While others are focused on getting their kids ready for school, mindlessly scrolling to ease their morning jitters, or popping into the Starbucks drive-thru for their morning coffee, Hobie Hanna, CEO of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, spent Thursday morning processing the flood of responses to his brokerage firm’s newest offering, Hanna List.
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HannaList is a service that brokerages prefer to call a strategic listing launch model rather than a private listing network. This allows Howard Hanna listing agents and their clients to share listings with Howard Hanna buyer agents prior to widespread distribution through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system. The company said the platform was built in collaboration with MLS partners and is in line with current listing policies, including Clear Coordination.
“I woke up this morning and heard a lot of people who work for us, clients, customers, industry people, saying, ‘Oh my God, this is great. This is innovative. This is what we should do,'” Inman said. “But I’ve also seen negative comments from other people in the industry, which were, ‘Oh my God, the brokers are doing something horrible again, they’re copying Compass, and there’s a movement here.'” I’m like, “Wow.” Please wait a moment. ”
Hanna said the concept of exclusive (or private) listings is not new, as brokers are always finding ways to meet the needs of their agents and customers, and some customers are better off starting their sales efforts in-house. But market trends and industry conflicts have made the practice more controversial, and the CEO said he hopes Hannalyst will prove that brokers can make “adult, centrist decisions” that benefit everyone involved.
“If we were sitting here in 2009 talking about what was next? [this] If you create a strategy, there will be no dialogue. “Unfortunately, with the lack of stock, everyone thinks that whoever is developing a different strategy must be hiding the ball. So, maybe Compass overplayed the strategy,” he said. perhaps. I’m not criticizing them. I think they adjusted that last week with the deal with Redfin. ”
“What we are doing is a common sense and fair approach,” he added, reiterating that his team worked with MLS partners to develop HannaList. “We’re a company that’s been in this industry for nearly 70 years and seen the ups and downs and ups and downs of multiple markets. We hope this makes people think it’s not an all-or-nothing situation.”
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Inman: Let’s get started. This isn’t Howard Hanna’s first foray into exclusive listings. In 2019, we launched Find It First, which allows buyers to search for Howard Hanna listings before they are added to the MLS and distributed to large portals. How did Find It First lay the foundation for HannaList?
Hannah: [Exclusive] The list is not new. This is a strategy some sellers use. Even [Inman Connect New York] When several executives were asked about exclusive listings in February, they said, “Oh yeah, there’s definitely room for exclusive listings.” One CEO even said something like, “If I were to sell a house now, it should be a luxury home.” It’s like you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Sometimes they need to get their property on the market as quickly as possible because that’s what the seller wants and it’s the strategy they think is best. Other times, even if it’s inside an office or company, it’s better to take a property and expose it to some extent to get feedback first. I think sellers should have some choice in how they sell their home. And it’s not all or nothing.
We launched Find It First to help consumers find our products on HowardHanna.com before they are listed elsewhere. It was to drive traffic to our website, our agency, and our listings.
We built that and it was a good lesson in always making sure we’re following the clear cooperation or rules that the MLS establishes for display. We belong to over 80 MLSs, each with different rules. This required double entry by administrative staff or sales personnel. If you enter information into Find It First to appear on HowardHanna.com and then enter it into the MLS, it will be overwritten. There were some glitches, and in a sense I was clumsy.
But the idea was to create a distribution system for brokers to provide feeds to the MLS, rather than the MLS providing feeds to brokers. That was the idea behind Project Upstream, but they couldn’t make it happen.
With our experience at Find It First, we knew we were large enough to be the broker to build HannaList. We found a great partner in Ocusell and were able to plan this distribution system with each MLS. We have been working with our MLS partners. So when you see people who are critical of this decision, they don’t understand. They could have built the same thing without partnering with Ocusell or MLS.
We believe in multiple listing services. We believe in cooperation. We believe in collaboration, but we also believe that brokerages should be able to control the distribution of their listed properties. Howard Hanna isn’t alone. everyone.
When your company’s spokesperson sent out the press release, I focused on the fact that HannaList was created in collaboration with your company’s MLS partners. So what I had in mind was Compass and CEO Robert Refkin. He has been hard at work paving the way for exclusive listings, eliminating CCPs, and creating a national MLS. How do you think the Compass movement is shaping response to your platform?
Is there anyone in our industry who would say to a seller, “This is no way to sell a house?” At Howard Hanna, we offer what we believe are the best strategies for listing your home, beyond just putting it on the MLS, putting up a sign, listing it on Zillow, and hoping buyers come. However, sellers have the final say on which strategy is most appropriate for their company.
And Compass is also coming up with a strategy. They built an internal system for that strategy. Robert might step out a little further and say, [individual] MLS should disappear [brokerages] A domestic MLS should be established. But even that isn’t new. Brokers, real estate agents, and agents have been talking about this for 15 years.
Next, add Zillow. Two 800-pound gorillas are fighting. Zillow is a media company. They are advertisers. They say, “If you don’t follow the rules, we won’t advertise.” And obviously that’s their choice.
I think the industry has forgotten about the middle ground in that regard. There are common-sense choices that the adults in the room can make together. We can say, “Wait a minute.” The seller should have a choice. This industry shouldn’t be ubiquitous. ”
Innovative and creative brokerages should be able to adopt alternative distribution models that support seller selection. This means you may not want to be listed on Zillow. Consumers decide what is right for them.
However, you can also create this model within an MLS framework. It has long been a single B2B, so when a broker is ready to list an item B2B, everyone can see what’s on sale. Some MLS executives don’t like that and may have ulterior motives, wanting to control all the data and not wanting to work with the brokers providing the data.
However, we believe our strategy with HannaList represents an adult, middle-of-the-road decision that will best benefit real estate agents, consumers, and brokerages. This represents a strategy that is both pro-industry and pro-consumer. There’s a lot of commotion going on [exclusive listings]but these options have always existed.
Earlier in our conversation, you said that if we had had this conversation in 2009, things would have been very different. Less polarization. Do you think the industry can get back to normal?
Growing up in this business, there’s always going to be confusion. Our industry is at an interesting time and there will be a lot of consolidation. And change brings panic and fear.
I remember Microsoft and Bill Gates saying they were going to start Boardwalk, an online real estate portal that would end the existence of real estate agents. You probably don’t need MLS. However, the website never actually launched. Instead, we got what we have now: Realtor.com, Zillow, and other portals. And the agent is still here.
This is the largest single financial transaction someone will ever make, and it is highly complex and emotional. Therefore, there is always a need for a human touch.
So when you hear now that artificial intelligence will replace agents, it’s no different than when people were told that the Internet would replace agents. That won’t happen. But we need to adapt.
Our industry has been around for two years. [significant] Change and challenge. Brokers, I would like to say that our job is to continue to serve and grow for our agents, but organized real estate may be a roadblock because they don’t want to change.
Even if it’s the National Association of Realtors, they say, “What’s your real purpose other than collecting dues?” What are you doing to strengthen and improve your industry?” [hundreds] An overview of the MLSs we have and why they haven’t evolved as a collective group.
As a brokerage firm, I think it’s important how we can control the data and the distribution of that data. And create a system that works within the framework of the MLS, rather than against it.
Email Marian McPherson
