Membership Rules Are Changing for Real Estate Agents. What It Means for the Housing Industry.

A trade group sets the standards for how real estate agents work in the U.S. Here: an open house in San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Key Points

• Starting in January, the National Association of Realtors will no longer recommend that local Multiple Listing Service databases mandate membership for agents.
• This rule change follows a 2023 antitrust verdict and a $418 million settlement in 2024, which led to other policy adjustments.
• The National Association of Realtors’ adjustments aim to modernize policies, manage legal risks, and reflect a renewed focus on member experience.

Rules for real estate agents will get a meaningful change in the new year. It’s another sign of a shift in priorities at the National Association of Realtors, the large real estate trade group, following a landmark antitrust verdict in 2023.

Most homes that appear on listing sites such as Zillow and Redfin are first advertised by agents on the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, a network of hundreds of local databases used to share information. These databases have different ownerships, but many require membership in NAR to use the services.

The trade group’s rules support that requirement. But NAR said Monday that its 2026 handbook for MLSes won’t recommend that local databases mandate membership for the agents who use it. The handbook will be published in January.

The tweak is the latest loosening of the trade group’s rules that govern business norms in the residential real estate industry, and a sign that aftereffects from the antitrust verdict against the trade group are still reshaping the industry’s business practices. “NAR is making concessions to maintain the support of dissatisfied members,” says Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the Consumer Policy Center. NAR had roughly 1.45 million members as of the end of May.

The Realtor group’s membership guidance for MLS usage has long been a thorn in the side of some agents. The change doesn’t necessarily mean the membership requirement is going away, but clarifies that “requiring association membership is a matter of local discretion,” according to a document outlining the recommendations.

It isn’t the first rule change at the organization that largely sets the standards for how real estate agents work in the U.S. Changes began in the wake of a jury verdict that found NAR and several brokerages guilty of inflating commissions.

As part of its $418 million settlement reached in 2024, the group barred agents from communicating commission rates on the MLS. Other rule changes followed: In March, for example, the trade group introduced a new policy for the databases that gave agents the option to exempt listings from public marketing for a period of time.

Combined, the moves suggest the trade group will approach the industry with a lighter touch when it comes to setting real estate industry standards. Nykia Wright, the trade group’s CEO appointed just days after the 2023 verdict, highlighted the trade group’s “renewed focus on member experience,” in an October letter to members earlier this year. Among the priorities Wright highlighted was “managing legal risks.”

The change appears to be, in part, a safeguard against future legal challenges to the national organization. The most recent guidance change was decided upon as a result of “a comprehensive antitrust risk assessment of all MLS policies,” the trade group said.

“These updates to the MLS Handbook strengthen and modernize NAR’s policies,” Kevin Sears, the trade group’s outgoing president, said in a press release. The recommendations, he said, “will help our organization and our industry move forward.”

Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com