Compass vs Zillow over private (pocket) listings

Updated May 2025

Compass vs Zillow over private (pocket) listings

Compass has changed their policy. The brokerage is giving agents at all brokerages – access to Coming Soon, which houses its exclusive listings. Compass says that the listings “protect home sellers against negative insights, such as days on market.”

In a news release, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin appeared to openly taunt the National Association of Realtors (NAR), whose CCP rule requires a Realtor to put a home for sale on the local NAR-affiliated multiple listing service (MLS) within a day of marketing a listing.

“At Compass we are advocating for homeowners to have control over how their listings are marketed,” Reffkin said in a statement. “We are working to ensure that NAR and the MLS no longer force homeowners to market their properties in ways that disadvantage them.”

Coming Soon is part of Compass’s three-phase marketing plan for homes. It begins with Exclusive Listings, which appear in search results on the Compass site but are not directly advertised.

Coming Soon is next. Those listings appear on the site before they appear on an MLS, which can be for about a day to several weeks. The third phase is the listing going live on all platforms, including the MLS and aggregators like Zillow.

In the invite to outside brokers and agents to use Coming Soon, Reffkin states that CCP-related mandates prevent Compass agents from sharing Private Exclusives with agents outside of Compass.

According to the company, one of the benefits of Compass’s marketing plan is that it hides metrics like days on market and price drop history that tend to negatively impact interest in a given home listing.

Coming Soon listings operate in a type of grey area with regard to CCP. Depending who you talk to — and the individual rules of a Realtor-affiliated MLS — you get different answers on whether the listings violate the CCP.

Regardless, the three-phase market plan is building an inventory of listings that Compass can use for true exclusives should it succeed in its quest to topple NAR’s CCP.

According to data from industry consultant and academic Mike DelPrete, Compass’s Private Exclusive listings have risen dramatically in the last six months and now make up 30% of all Compass listings, and the roughly 1,400 Coming Soon listings take that number to 35%.

Compass has gotten more and more vocal about not only its opposition to the CPP, but its intention to build an inventory of truly exclusive listings in the event that the rule is rescinded. The debate has gotten increasingly heated, with feuds over it on LinkedIn have gotten more frequent and at times vitriolic.

Where players in real estate stand on the issue is predictably tied to their business interests. Zillow — which would lose listings if the CCP went away — published a study last week which concluded that so-called “pocket listings” sold for roughly $5,000 less, equating to a 1.5% decrease on the national median sale price.

NAR appears to be waffling on the issue. The trade group held a meeting on the rule at the end of 2024 but did not make a decision on whether it will remove it.

Source: HousingWire

Compass vs Zillow over private (pocket) listings

The debate surrounding the National Association of REALTORS’® Clear Cooperation Policy raged on in April, with Compass suing Seattle-based Northwest MLS at the end of the month.

Tension surrounding the anti-private listing protocol hit a fever pitch when NAR amended its policy at the end of March, adding a new listing option that allows sellers to delay widespread marketing of their properties.

Critics of the change included NWMLS, which houses listing data for a majority of the counties in Washington. The group had previously stood in support of NAR’s policy.

“Restricting the visibility of available homes to a select, exclusive group of buyers and brokers is fundamentally unfair and perpetuates inequalities that have long plagued the housing system,” said President and CEO Justin Haag, adding that such exclusionary practices will lead to the dismantling of the real estate marketplace. “The discriminatory effect and disparate impact that results from restricting access to listings to an exclusive group of buyers and brokers is just that — discrimination.”

Windermere Real Estate — the Seattle area’s biggest brokerage — has also been outspoken about its opposition to private listing networks, as well as brokerages that seek to form them.

There’s no misunderstanding which brokerage Windermere and NWMLS are referring to, though: Compass.

Compass has long been the loudest dissenter to NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), with CEO Robert Reffkin telling Chicago Agent back in January, “the easiest way to create more inventory in this country is to take away the risk of listing your house — days on the market and price drop history.”

Reffkin added that those two stats can make a home “look like damaged goods in the eyes of a buyer.”

Technically, NAR’s updated CCP does allow for off-MLS listings. However, since NWMLS is privately owned, it’s not subject to NAR’s rules. Therefore, under NWMLS policy, homeowners in most of Washington are prohibited from using any pre-marketing tactics if they want to add their homes to the MLS.

Compass says that policy is unfair to its clients in the area, who are forced to use NWMLS since the service has “no meaningful competitors” in the market.

Windermere Real Estate has argued the same about Compass though, saying that if Compass, which ranks among the largest brokerages nationwide, is allowed to form its own private listing network, it will prohibit open and fair access to the market.

It’s important to note, though, that Windermere  brokers hold six of NWMLS’s 16 board seats. No other brokerage has more than one, as Compass pointed out in a statement to Seattle Agent — meaning the company has an oversized influence on NWMLS policies and practices. It also means the brokerage is inextricably tied to the new Compass lawsuit, announced at the end of April.

Other major players in the industry have made statements that echo NWMLS’ stance, though.

Zillow banned private listings in April, with Redfin right in tow. Brokerages including NextHome, West USA Realty and eXp Realty also followed Zillow’s lead, committing to sharing all listings with the MLS, and all online listing portals, within 24 hours of public marketing.

eXp also doubled down with a new seller advisory form that warns sellers of the potential risks of marketing and selling their home privately.

Rumblings of Compass’ plans stirred online when a new website called “Washington Homeowner Rights” launched, seeking potential plaintiffs for a class-action lawsuit. While Compass wasn’t explicitly listed as the creator, the site’s Terms of Service and Privacy notices linked back to Compass policies.

The site claimed that Compass clients were damaged by NWMLS rules, saying, “In every other state, homeowners have the freedom to explore alternative off-MLS marketing strategies that protect value, privacy and flexibility. In Washington, that freedom doesn’t exist — and sellers are paying the price.”

However, NWMLS flexed its market power on April 16 when it cut off its data sharing exchange with Compass for nearly two days, leaving Compass agents and clients without Seattle-area MLS access. Access was restored after an agreement was allegedly reached between the two parties.

Compass took a public shot at NWMLS with its homeowner defense lawsuit though, announced in a press release on April 25.

“Compass is proud to support Washington homeowners who are asking the right question: Why are we the only homeowners in America without a choice in how we sell our home?” Reffkin said. “The NWMLS system wasn’t built to serve homeowners — it was built to preserve the monopolistic power of the NWMLS.”

Boston Condos for Sale and Apartments for Rent

Updated: Boston Real Estate Blog 2025

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Ford Realty is located in 137 Charles Street in Beacon Hill

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Compass vs Zillow over private (pocket) listings

Compass vs Zillow over private (pocket) listings

Compass Real Estate — the nation’s largest residential broker — has been trying to play a version of gatekeeper by keeping new Boston condo for sale listings private long enough for its own agents and clients to get first dibs.

But Zillow — the nation’s largest real estate portal — says it won’t play along.

In a recent move that sent a bombshell through the nations real estate industry, Zillow announced that starting May 1, it will blacklist any property that starts its life behind Compass’s “private” curtain.

“A listing marketed to any buyer should be marketed to all buyers,” Zillow said in a statement on its website. “Consumers should not have to wonder whether the home that might be perfect for them is hidden behind a gate they didn’t know existed.”

Zillow’s new standards require that any new listing put on a multiple listing service — a database where agents and brokers share information on properties for sale, such as our MLSPIN — be published on websites like Zillow within 24 hours of the start of a public marketing campaign.

But Compass has been keeping many listings off the multi-list services, making them private with limited accessibility — meaning the general public could not view the listing until Compass agents have a chance to market them to buyers for an exclusive period of time.

My thoughts on the feud and the Boston condo for sale market

This feud will be interesting to watch. Will one of these titans cave in? Will they both hold their ground?

I think there will only be one loser, and that will be – the Boston condo buyer. 

Why? If all the large and small Boston real estate companies, start keeping their listings behind their private websites and not on MLS. How does that help the Boston condo buyer find their dream home? Do they have to log into every Boston real estate website to find condos?

This is going to slow down the Boston condo sales market. Maybe even to a halt.

Boston Condos for Sale and the Bottom Line

If you’re a Boston condo buyer, searching for a new home, call us at 617-595-3712.

Our staff will guide you on the easiest way to find your dream home, free of charge.

Updated: Boston Real Estate Blog 2025

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