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After 3.5 years, the multiple listing service owners of Remine are throwing in the towel and attempting to sell the real estate software company, either whole or in parts.
Earlier this month, MLS Technology Holdings, a joint venture between four multiple listing services boasting a total of 148,000 members, initiated a voluntary bankruptcy alternative in court in order to allow the company to put Remine’s assets up for sale.
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The multiple listing services — Austin Board of Realtors’ Unlock MLS, First MLS, Miami Realtors’ MLS and Heartland MLS — incorporated in 2021 in a bid to acquire Remine in a deal that closed that October, ABR CEO Emily Chenevert told Inman that year.
The MLSs collectively paid $53.5 million to buy Remine. Remine is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MLS Technology Intermediate Holdings, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MLSTH.
According to legal filings, on February 19, MLSTH hired Rock Creek Ventures, a financial advisory firm that specializes in business restructuring, to run an eight-week sale process for Vienna,Virginia-based Remine under a proceeding known as an assignment for the benefit of the creditors or ABC.
According to the American Bar Association, an ABC “is a business liquidation device available to an insolvent debtor as an alternative to formal bankruptcy proceedings.”
The trade group notes that an ABC “can be the most advantageous and graceful exit strategy” for a company, especially if “the goals are (1) to transfer the assets of the troubled business to an acquiring entity free of the unsecured debt incurred by the transferor and (2) to wind down the company in a manner designed to minimize negative publicity and potential liability for directors and management.”
Emily Chenevert
Inman reached out directly to Chenevert, previous board chair for MLS Technology Holdings, for comment. While Chenevert has previously served as a spokesperson for MLSTH, Inman received responses to some of the questions sent to Chenevert from a public relations representative who said the responses were to be attributed to Unlock MLS and not to MLSTH or Remine.
Unlock MLS told Inman that Chenevert resigned as MLSTH board chair “in July 2024 to focus solely on supporting Unlock MLS subscribers through the NAR [National Association of Realtors] settlement changes that took effect in August.” Chenevert continues to be a member of the MLSTH board of managers.
Kipp Cooper
Inman also reached out to Joe Kazzoun, CEO of Remine; Jeremy Crawford, CEO of First MLS; Teresa King Kinney, CEO of Miami Realtors’ MLS; and Kipp Cooper, CEO of Heartland MLS, for comment. The latter three are also members of the MLSTH board. We will update this story if and when responses are received.
“An ABC proceeding is the most efficient and responsible path forward for Remine,” Unlock MLS told Inman in a statement.
“It provides a structured pathway to transition Remine’s assets while creating the best opportunity for an acquisition. In choosing an ABC proceeding, MLS Technology Holdings’ Board of Directors took great care to follow recommended procedures and sought outside advisors to mitigate risk to the company and its stakeholders.
“Unlike bankruptcy, which is costly and complex, an ABC allows for a more streamlined resolution while minimizing disruption to customers and leaves a pathway for another industry player to continue supporting the partnerships of the current Remine customers.”
Teresa King Kinney
In a statement, Miami Association of Realtors told Inman the purpose of its investment in Remine “was to further strengthen and expand the value of Remine’s products and services.”
“Since then, the needs have evolved, as has the landscape of MLS operations,” the statement adds.
“As such, we are taking this opportunity to strategically transition leadership and ownership of Remine so that it can continue growing and reach its full potential through the Assignment for Benefit of Creditors process (ABC) and so that a neutral third-party fiduciary can solicit bids with the goal of continuing and growing Remine’s services and customer base, while obtaining the maximum value for Remine.
“MIAMI continues its commitment and focus on providing our 61,000 members with top-tier products, tools, services, resources, advocacy and education, MIAMI’s members continue to have full access to the platform in addition to over 200 other member benefits.”
What went wrong?
Before its acquisition by MLSTH, Remine, which was founded in 2015, had a checkered history plagued by financial troubles, plunging personnel rolls, questions over its use of MLS data and a toxic work environment.
When MLSTH bought Remine, its customer base was made up of nearly 60 Realtor associations and MLSs representing 1.2 million real estate professionals. Now, those figures are down to more than 40 MLSs representing more than 600,000 real estate pros nationwide, according to the ABC petition.
Joe Kazzoun
The company had about 60 employees when it was acquired in 2021, about 40 of them software engineers; it’s unknown how many there are now. The first Remine CEO hired post-acquisition, Frederick Townes, resigned seven months into the job. Kazzoun, who was initially at Remine for 14 months in 2019 and 2020 as its vice president of MLS, came back to the company in April 2024 as its CEO, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The ABC petition indicates that Remine raised capital from 2016 through 2020 by issuing convertible notes and a series of preferred stock — Series A, Series A-1 and Series B — but that the company has never turned a profit and was balance sheet insolvent by the time it was purchased by MLSTH in 2021.
“Since that time, Remine’s revenue has decreased by over 25 percent due to customer attrition and cost cuts have not made up for the revenue loss,” the ABC petition reads.
“Some of the lost customers were some of the largest MLS organizations in the United States, including the three largest.”
The nation’s three largest MLSs are California Regional MLS (CRMLS), Bright MLS and Stellar MLS, which together boast some 292,000 subscribers. Bright ditched Remine Pro just three months after MLSTH acquired Remine, citing low adoption and other available tools with similar features. Since then, CRMLS, Bright and Stellar have each gone on to found their own subsidiaries.
Greg Robertson
In response to Bright’s change, Remine sent its Bright users a message informing them that Bright had not renewed its data license and asking them to email Bright CEO Brian Donnellan — a move that veteran real estate tech vendor Greg Robertson denounced, saying, “Any MLS organization that has Remine as a member benefit has now been put on notice that Remine will go behind their backs if the MLS organization chooses to exercise their contractual right to cancel/downgrade their service/data license.”
According to the ABC petition, the loss of the three mega MLSs as customers “impacted Remine’s reputation and its ability to attract new MLS customers.”
“While recently there has been some improvement in adding new revenue, including by diversifying sales revenue by selling subscriptions to individual real estate and mortgage professionals, building the new revenue stream requires more time and money than Remine has,” the petition adds.
According to Unlock MLS, it and the other three MLSs invested in Remine “to secure greater control over critical MLS technology and support long-term innovation for our subscribers,” but at some point “it became clear that scaling it into a full MLS solution was not feasible under the constraints of the business.”
Asked why Remine was never profitable, Unlock MLS said that building a full-scale MLS platform “requires significant investment.”
“From Unlock MLS’s perspective, evolving market dynamics made it increasingly difficult for Remine to achieve the necessary scale for long-term sustainability,” Unlock MLS said.
“In the last three years, Remine faced challenges in shifting subscriber needs, changing industry models and ongoing litigation impacting the MLS space that were increasingly difficult to overcome.”
Asked which “shifting subscriber needs, changing industry models and ongoing litigation” it was referring to, Unlock MLS declined to comment.
Debt and previous attempts to sell
Jeremy Crawford, CEO of First MLS
The ABC petition notes that, in 2021 and 2022, MLSTH incurred $8 million in unsecured debt for Remine, which has now accumulated $2 million in interest and remains unpaid.
Remine’s unsecured creditors include First MLS (for $1 million), former Remine executive Chelsea Goyer, Moody’s Analytics, Ayrshire Real Estate Technologies and Stripes IV LP, among several others.
“Many attempts have been made to attract outside investment, to find strategic partners and/or to sell Remine to no avail,” the petition reads.
“Specifically, in the year leading up to this ABC Proceeding, Remine reached out to seven companies in the real estate/real estate property technology space to see if they might be interested in purchasing some or all of Remine’s assets. This list included both well-known public companies and well-funded, private equity-owned companies, as well as several smaller organizations.”
Those talks went nowhere, according to the filing.
“While Remine is aware of two parties that may remain interested in acquiring Remine’s assets, Remine simply does not have the time or financial ability to continue discussions with these parties,” the petition says.
No regret over multimillions spent
Unlock MLS declined to say how much each MLS that acquired Remine contributed to its $53.5 million purchase price and how much they anticipate getting back.
“Each MLS invested in Remine at different levels, and the financial outcome remains uncertain as the possibility of an acquisition is still outstanding,” Unlock MLS said.
Regardless, Unlock MLS does not wish it hadn’t bought the company.
“Unlock MLS does not regret investing in Remine,” Unlock MLS said.
“At the time, industry consolidation raised concerns about MLS technology independence, and investing in Remine was a proactive move to give MLSs a seat at the table.”
The purchase was made just after Zillow acquired ShowingTime, a deal that prompted concerns among some brokers and MLSs.
“While the landscape has changed, we learned valuable lessons and took decisive action when it became clear that further investment [in Remine] was not the best path forward,” Unlock MLS said.
