DeCatsye will be retiring on Dec. 31, 2026, but before she goes, she is making certain Canopy Real estate agent Association no longer controls Canopy MLS or depends on it economically.
- Increased scrutiny of Real estate agent subscription requirements to access the MLS affected Canopy MLS's choice to welcome non-Realtors as subscribers last fall.
- DeCatsye thinks NAR is moving liability to local MLSs - however says that's "fine" provided the legal dangers of NAR's MLS policies and its handling of the commission lawsuits.
In 2022, Anne Marie DeCatsye informed her Real estate agent association she would just stay on for five more years and provided the leadership group with a thought experiment: If the association and its multiple listing service passed away in 5 years, why would it happen?

The group concluded that the MLS would stop working "because of the legal landscape and the danger from larger companies beginning a nationwide MLS, or the syndication websites doing it," DeCatsye told Real Estate News in an exclusive interview.

"Why [would] the association close its doors? Because the MLS went away. That's bad. There requires to be value in the association outside of the MLS, and we need to be able to articulate that worth."

That realization sparked Canopy Real estate agent Association's change: Unlike the large majority of its peers, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based association and its MLS would become independent of each other, and the MLS would welcome non-Realtors.

Two companies, 2 CEOs

"We have functionally and financially separated the MLS from the association," DeCatsye stated. It's the type of move some in the industry have actually been advising in the last few years.

"Our association board of directors has absolutely nothing to do with MLS policy. The only thing they see are the minutes of the MLS board conferences and the financials as the parent organization."

Completing that separation implies that each company will get its own CEO when DeCatsye leaves at the end of next year.

The association will continue to own the MLS, which DeCatsye sees no problem with, however she stresses that Real estate agent associations should no longer control or be financially depending on an MLS.

"I'm surprised at how lots of [associations that own an MLS] not just are depending on funds coming back to them from the MLS, however they also, one, believe they are the MLS