Years of work improving accessibility in real estate has culminated in 12 new MLS search fields aimed at helping buyers find homes that meet their needs.
Key points:
- Barry Long and Able Environments, a company he co-founded with Tom Minty, won an NAR 2026 Fair Housing Champion Award for their work developing accessibility criteria in home searches.
- After decades of slow progress in the industry, Able Environments is bringing new momentum to the issue. The company’s co-founders aspire for their accessibility search criteria to be implemented widely by MLSs and portals.
- In an interview with Real Estate News, Long encouraged other agents to learn more about their clients living with disabilities — and discouraged fear about addressing those clients’ needs.
Barry Long says he “should be dead.” But the now-mid-life real estate agent somehow escaped death at age 22 after crashing his motorcycle. He has been a paraplegic ever since.
Long enrolled in community college following a grueling eight-month hospital stay, his dream of being a fishing and hunting guide seemingly impossible in the wake of the crash. He later challenged himself by traveling the world for over two years — a journey that showed him “what the world was like, getting around in a wheelchair.”
“People seemed to be motivated by me doing it,” Long told Real Estate News in a recent interview. “The next thing I know, I’m talking to kids about making good choices and I’m talking to adults about not being held down by life … and it turned into a public speaking company.”
A new passion
Long spoke to groups of all kinds for over 30 years. But his direction changed 11 years ago when he delivered a keynote speech at a Sotheby’s International Realty affiliate in Seattle.
Long found that his message — challenging real estate professionals to change the system that made it nearly impossible for him to find a home with accessibility features — really stuck. A month later, Sotheby’s offered to pay for him to get his license — if he came to work for them and create a solution for the broken system.
Years later, Long and business partner Tom Minty have earned accolades — including the 2026 NAR Fair Housing Champion Award and the 2025 King County Small Business of the Year Award — for their work pursuing this mission.
Founding Able Environments
After Sotheby’s offer, Long was introduced to Minty at John L. Scott Real Estate. The two share a passion for making the industry more accessible and quickly found that they make a great team. Their goal? “To see if we could fix the lack of accessibility in the system,” Long explained.
Initially, Minty conceived their now co-founded company Able Environments as an informal place for agents to find accessibility resources online. Once the two teamed up, they decided to make it a bona fide business, one that’s now co-branded with Marketplace Sotheby’s International Realty and John L. Scott.
While they…
Read More: Cracking the accessibility barrier in the MLS
