Ensuring Public Marketing of Residential Housing Opportunities
As an organization, Washington REALTORS® is committed to advocating for our members and their clients. We are the leading advocates for homeownership, with a long-standing record of representing the interests of homebuyers, sellers, and property owners throughout the state through our legislative advocacy efforts. Our top public policy priority has consistently been to build communities that have a strong economy and attractive, affordable home choices.
Each legislative session, our government affairs team and legislative steering committee watch for proposed legislation that could impact REALTORS®, our clients, or the industry in our state. For the past 5 years, our north star has been making Washington the most consumer-friendly state in which to buy and sell real estate. This year is no different.
In this short session, there’s one key bill that you’re likely to hear a lot about – SB 6091, which is intended to promote equal access to housing by ensuring public listings.
This bill would amend existing statute to require public marketing of all residential listings.
If you’ve been paying attention to real estate industry discussions in 2025, you have likely heard or participated in a conversation about public listing networks. The leadership at Washington REALTORS® has been part of these conversations too. Ultimately, we believe that the use of private listing networks, without also making listings publicly available, poses a long-term threat to the transparent marketplace that ultimately benefits both consumers and REALTORS®. The potential growth of this practice also creates the risk of moving us backwards in Fair Housing practices.
This bill would prohibit brokers from marketing residential properties to an exclusive group of prospective buyers or brokers, unless the residential property is also concurrently marketed to the general public and other real estate brokers, except as reasonably necessary to protect the health or safety of the owner or occupant. Those who choose to use private listing networks can continue to do so if they market. the property publicly as well.
More information on SB 6091, including FAQs, is available here: https://www.warealtor.org/advocacy-legal/government-affairs/legislation/2026-legislative-session/ensuring-public-listings
If you have any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you: https://wrfeedback.paperform.co/