NAREB President: Private Listing Networks Repeat History's Harm

Ashley Thomas III, president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, made a pointed argument this week: the current industry fight over private listing networks isn't a new argument. It's an old one wearing new clothes.

In an interview published by Inman on June 19, Thomas—who has spent 27 years in real estate and has led NAREB for less than a year—connected the rise of private listing networks directly to the decades-long exclusion of Black Americans from the organized listing systems that preceded the modern MLS. His position is unambiguous: transparency in how homes are listed and marketed is not a preference. It is a fair housing requirement.

What "The List" Actually Meant—and Who Was Left Off It

Thomas traced the problem to the origins of organized real estate in the United States. For roughly the first seven decades of the industry's existence, the listing systems that agents used to share property information were not open to Black buyers, sellers, or agents. Access to those networks was effectively a tool of segregation—determining not just who could buy where, but who could build wealth through real estate at all.

Segregationist law compounded the damage. Black Americans faced restrictions on where they could live, what neighborhoods they could purchase in, and what financial products they could access. The Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act shifted the legal landscape, but Thomas argued that the underlying inequities have never been fully dismantled. In 2026, he noted, financial institutions are still being fined and penalized for redlining.

That history is the lens through which NAREB evaluates today's debate about private listing networks—brokerage-controlled systems where homes are marketed internally before, or instead of, being submitted to a regional MLS.

The Chicago Data Point Sellers Should Know

Thomas cited a Zillow study of the Chicago market, published last November, which found that majority-white neighborhoods were more than twice as likely as Black neighborhoods to have private listings. That gap matters because it shapes who sees a home, how many offers a seller receives, and ultimately what price a property commands.

The mechanism is straightforward. When a home is kept inside a private network, it reaches only the buyers connected to that particular brokerage or platform. A seller in a neighborhood with limited access to those networks—or whose agent isn't plugged into the dominant local brokerage ecosystem—starts the transaction at a structural disadvantage. Fewer eyes on a listing typically means fewer competing offers, and fewer competing offers typically means less money at closing.

Thomas was careful to say NAREB is not accusing private listing advocates of deliberate discrimination. But he was equally clear that intent does not neutralize outcome. The data shows a disparate result, and in fair housing terms, a disparate result is the standard that matters.

What This Means If You're Getting Ready to Sell

For homeowners planning to sell, the NAREB president's argument has practical weight regardless of where you live or what your background is. The core question he's raising is one every seller should be asking their agent directly: where exactly will my home be listed, and who will be able to see it?

Private listing arrangements are legal, and in some narrow circumstances—an estate sale requiring privacy, a high-profile seller managing security concerns—they can serve a legitimate purpose. But as a default marketing strategy, keeping a home off the public MLS almost always serves the brokerage's interests more than the seller's. A brokerage that controls both the listing and the buyer earns a larger share of the commission. The seller, meanwhile, may never know how many buyers were never given the chance to make an offer.

Thomas's broader argument is that the MLS, whatever its structural flaws, remains the most open and transparent system available for matching sellers with the widest possible pool of buyers. NAREB's position—that transparency is fair housing—is another way of saying that broad market exposure is the single most reliable tool a seller has for achieving a competitive price.

If you're interviewing agents before listing, ask each one whether they intend to submit your home to the MLS on day one, what their brokerage's policy is on internal or private network marketing, and whether any period of pre-MLS exposure is being proposed. Get those answers in writing before you sign a listing agreement.

If you want a baseline number before that conversation—a data-backed sense of what your home is worth in the current market—an instant offer estimate can give you a floor to negotiate from, so you walk into any agent meeting knowing your position.

The broader industry debate Thomas is wading into will play out in boardrooms, courtrooms, and legislative hearings over the coming months. But the decision about how your specific home gets marketed happens right now, in the agreement you sign with your agent. That's the moment where history, policy, and your financial outcome converge into something you can actually control.