The annual shareholders meeting of the West Penn Mult-List happened today. I gained admission thanks to my single share of ownership of the building that the West Penn Multi-List occupies.

As the meeting began, the President of the multi-list announced the prohibition of any statements at the meeting that could identify other members of the multi-list. So I couldn't deliver my prepared statement. 

Here's what surprised me: the guy who publicly bashes the multi-list didn't show up. His cousin (a board-member) was there, but he was mute. And business was conducted as if everything is fine and well at the West Penn Mult-List. This, despite the fact that one of its largest shareholders is taking steps to undermine the very purpose of the multi-list.

Anyhow, here's what I would have said, had I had the chance:

We need to return to first principles.

Why does a Multiple Listing Service exist?

It exists because real estate is fundamentally built on shared liquidity, open access, and professional cooperation. The MLS serves its constituents by pooling inventory—ensuring that every buyer sees every home, every seller receives maximum market exposure, and every broker operates on a transparent, level playing field.

The entire value of a shared exchange relies on one simple premise: uncompromising, universal participation.

What happens, then, when members of that network decide to go rogue?

What happens when participating brokerages stop asking, "How do we strengthen the collective exchange?" and instead start asking, "How can we avoid using the multi-list unless it's an absolute last resort?"

When rules are bent, inventory is withheld, and shared infrastructure is treated as a secondary dump site rather than a primary marketplace, the integrity of our entire market breaks down. Using cooperative rules to engineer private, walled gardens for competitive advantage isn't market innovation—it is network degradation.

This brings us to the core issue before us today.

What happens when the entities engaging in these tactics aren't just fringe players, but the very leaders—the legacy, multi-generational, self-proclaimed stewards—of the multi-list itself?

Leadership in a cooperative exchange requires an active commitment to its purpose. When you stop advocating for the full use of the MLS, you relinquish the moral authority to lead it. You cannot sit at the governing table while actively calculating how to opt out of the system whenever it suits your private bottom line.

Recently, we heard complaints from Hobie Hanna that the multi-list has been "weaponized against its members." Let’s examine that premise honestly.

If this platform has indeed been weaponized, we have to ask a simple, uncomfortable question: When you have held structural control of this multi-list for generations... why did you allow it to get weaponized?

You cannot helm the ship, set its course, and then complain about where it drifts.

Calling inventory-withholding an "innovative strategy" while publicly professing support for the multi-list is an unsustainable double standard.

You created this multi-list. You control this multi-list. Yet you attend these meetings under the pretense of protecting it, while operationally engineering ways to bypass it.

If there are systemic failures in our marketplace today, let us be clear about their origin: those failures do not come from external forces. They are the direct result of governance that has lost its commitment to the very community it was built to serve.

If you no longer believe in the mission of an open, shared marketplace, that is your choice as a business. But if that is your stance, you do not belong in the leadership of this exchange.

Thank you.