The breach of contract lawsuit filed earlier this week by REcore Solutions LLC, a licensing services vendor working with multiple listing services and an offshoot of the California Regional Multiple Listing Service Inc. (CRMLS), against Homes.com and its parent company CoStar Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) over alleged unpaid licensing fees has been dropped.
CRMLS announced the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, noting in an email to its members that the companies “renewed their long-term agreement under which Homes.com will continue to receive CRMLS listings.”
REcore does not charge fees to MLS participants who directly contribute to the network effect of the MLS. Instead, it has a fee structure where entities that use MLS data to generate revenue without representing buyers or sellers must pay for usage rights. The company noted the CRMLS requires REcore to distribute profits from such use back to the listing brokers who provided the original MLS content.
According to its lawsuit, REcore Solutions claimed that Homes.com and CoStar signed a license agreement, effective January 2024, which included a fee structure requiring licensees who monetized the MLS data, rather than using it to obtain buyer and seller clients – to pay for those usage rights. Under this agreement, Homes.com agreed to pay approximately $2 per MLS listing record displayed on their site. But the company claimed Homes.com did not pay the full amount cited in the agreement. REcore added that after more than a year of negotiations, it announced that it would terminate the Homes.com and HomesPro data feeds containing listing records for the CRMLS as of Nov. 1.
Neither Homes.com nor CoStar issued a public comment regarding the lawsuit or the agreement that ended the litigation.
