Chicagoland's MLSNI is still in turmoil as board executives attempt to attract some big brokers back to the MLS fold.

On June 21, weeks after big brokers such as Baird and Warner, Koenig and Strey and Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage pulled 22 out of 95 of their offices out of MLSNI, the MLSNI board handed the brokers at least three major concessions.

1. In response to brokers' demands, the board has voted to shut down MLSNI's public listing Website, www.chicagometrorealestate.com, which some brokers said competed with their own Websites. The public listing search feature was eliminated effective June 30, 2004. Other features of www.MLSNI.com will remain intact, according to a memo, with questions to be directed to local boards or associations.

2. The board also voted to increase the number of brokers on the MLSNI board from five to 12, giving the brokers a 12 to 10 majority over the association shareholders which each hold a single seat on the board.

3. The much anticipated all-in, all-out revote did not take place on June 23rd. In response to a letter from the National Association of Realtors' Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee, after a flurry of mail from attorneys for MLSNI and Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, the board succumbed to NAR's decision that the previous vote did not follow procedure, as it was about requiring "firms," rather than "participants," or "members" to include all or none of their offices.

"The shareholders decided that adopting the new policy wouldn't be in the best interest of trying to come to a long-term mutually acceptable solution," Jay Huffman, MLSNI's chair and CEO told Realtor Magazine. "Rather than drawing a line in the sand, they decided it would be better to make a positive effort to involve the brokers in running the corporation."

Many of the offices which had left MLSNI and gone to competing MAP MLS had continued to submit listings through co-workers back into the MLSNI system. The meeting recorded that the rules department of MLSNI had "received and processed a total of 228 complaints for listings with a non-member appearing as a co-lister, or properties listed in MLSNI with one office/agent, and a different office/agent in MAP."