According to HousingWire, Richard Haggerty, who leads OneKey MLS serving over forty thousand agents across the New York area including Long Island, Manhattan, and the Hudson Valley, is focused on giving agents better tools to work more efficiently. The organization recently integrated Ocusell's listing management technology, which helps agents with things like automatically filling in listing fields, improving property descriptions, and managing photos more smoothly. Haggerty sees this move as part of a larger trend where agents want flexibility and the ability to have their data move seamlessly across multiple systems rather than being locked into one platform.
When it comes to artificial intelligence, Haggerty believes the technology is already making a real difference in specific ways. AI can handle basic questions from consumers through chat or email, which means fewer phone calls are needed for routine inquiries. However, when questions get more complex or require real judgment, human agents still need to be involved. On the consumer side, the MLS's search platform is using AI to help people refine their searches more effectively, and that's going to be a growing part of how property searches work going forward.
The New York market faces serious challenges right now, particularly around affordability. Haggerty points out that even though his territory is very diverse, from Manhattan apartments to suburban communities, affordable housing is a problem everywhere in it. He traces much of this to a shortage of inventory that started after the pandemic recovery and never really bounced back. As the inventory stayed low, prices kept climbing. While Haggerty stops short of endorsing specific political solutions, he makes clear that addressing the housing shortage and affordability crisis has to be a priority for everyone involved in real estate if the market is going to thrive.
Looking ahead, Haggerty is emphasizing that the MLS itself shouldn't be taken for granted in today's changing industry. There's talk of consolidation and whether everything should merge into one national system, but Haggerty believes that while some consolidation makes sense, different markets have different needs. What matters most is that agents, members, and the MLS itself remember and understand the real value the MLS brings to the ecosystem. Part of that value comes from staying flexible and giving agents real choices about how their data flows and what tools they can use.
What I am seeing locally here in the Bay Area really resonates with some of what Haggerty is talking about. Our market has its own flavor and unique challenges, different from New York, but the underlying issues are similar. Inventory remains tight, affordability is a constant concern for buyers, and agents are hungry for tools that give them more flexibility rather than locking them into rigid systems. The push toward data portability and agent choice, the way OneKey is moving, feels like the right direction. It's about empowering agents to serve their clients better rather than forcing everyone into the same box.
