Speaking from New York, Manhattan really doesn’t have a functional MLS (or at least one that most brokers agree to use). Most apartments for sale are listed in the real estate section of the Times, and brokers having open houses every weekend or just showing apartments to whoever happens to call (regardless of whether they bring a broker) is pretty common.
There are more dual-agency sales, and FSBOs tend to also end up in the Times, so it levels the playing field between by-broker and FSBO. If SD gradually moved to a non-MLS system, it would actually be good for everyone except perhaps the brokers, who’d no longer have as much of a monopoly.
