Posted on 10/15/2026 9:41:34 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Mega-brokerage Compass is taking more listings offline, sparking backlash from rivals who say the practice is upending decades of market transparency
Social-media battles. A cease and desist. Lawsuits and threats.
The real-estate industry is tearing itself apart over a question that home buyers haven’t had to ask in decades: When you search for a home online, are you actually seeing every property for sale?
For the better part of two decades, the answer to that question has largely been yes, with the vast majority of listings available on sites like Zillow and Trulia. But Compass—now the nation’s largest brokerage—is changing the game. Compass offers its sellers the option to market their homes first as “private exclusives” through the company’s internal website before putting them on listings sites or the local multiple listings service. In fact, it’s been actively encouraging its agents to take their listings off those portals. In New York, for instance, Compass recently offered a $1,000 credit to agents who agreed to pull their listings off the website StreetEasy.
While Compass once controlled only a small percentage of listings, that changed in January with the company’s controversial acquisition of the behemoth Anywhere Real Estate, parent company of Coldwell Banker, Corcoran, Century 21 and Sotheby’s International Realty. Now a much higher percentage of properties for sale could be hidden from potential home buyers.
Compass says its model offers sellers more choice on how to market their homes, but critics say it is harming the consumer. Now the long-simmering industry dispute is spilling over into public view, with lawmakers and civil-rights advocates taking notice.
“This is all coming to a head,” said Errol Samuelson, chief industry development officer at Zillow Group. “This issue is going to have a real impact on people’s lives and how they buy and sell, where...”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
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What’s in it for the seller? Wouldn’t it be better to advertise your home for sell where all potential buyers would bid on it?
Before the Interwebs, Multiple Listing Service (MLS) allowed licensed real estate brokers to share listings with other agents, but not the public.
If you pay us the full 6%, we’ll actually list your home!
"Buying or selling a home without a realtor (known as For Sale By Owner, or FSBO, for sellers) is legally permitted everywhere in the U.S., but it is moderately to very difficult and carries significant financial and legal risks. Only a small percentage of transactions happen completely independently (about 6% to 7% for buyers and sellers)."
Anyone who searched for ANYTHING online and thinks that the result is from ......... all possibilities = child. Grow up. Get off yer lazy butt and do a search like your life depends on it.
‘Cause it does.
Anyone who engages in a personal attack rather than presenting evidence that the issue in question is incorrect is a child.
If it's not true, prove it.
The appearance of a lower sales commission.
...Which very likely will not be realized.
This is an attempt by real estate agents to take back control of the market by restricting information. There are no real benefits to buyers or sellers.
Right now, there are more real estate agents than there are houses for sale. It is a difficult way to make a living. Commissions that were once as high as 8% are often down to 4% and split between two agents.
Read all of the terms and conditions of a proffered contract very carefully. There are an amazing number of additional fees involved in sale/purchase of a house. Agents make their money by closing deals as fast as possible.
The incentive is to rush buyers and sellers through the process with minimal time for consideration of costs and other "details".
Their website, they can do what they want, it is called freedom.
when ever a new property comes on the market, the realtors meet and divy it up before it goes public.
Here in California many homes give way for developers who build apartments that go for about $2,500 a month to start.
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There is no good reason why agents fees should be calculated as a percentage of the price of the house. It does not cost twice as much to sell a $600,000 house than it costs to sell a $300,000 house. They should not get twice the fee. There should be a fee fixed in advance to help sell a house.
this thread will surely bring out the commies that want to control how much someone can charge for their services ...
Crooked Real Estate business deserves what they get. I put my home up for sale in Texas. The comptitors to my agency were the RE mafia. They—the mafia—saw me outside one day and stopped to tell me unless I list with them they would make sure my house never sold. After 45 days I broke down and listed with mafia group. Within 5 days I had 7 over asking price offers. I will never trust another RE group again.
Oh, that makes way too much sense.
Of course, but why would a free buyer or seller go along with it.
Both times I moved and sold my house I did it without a broker. I found it not to be too difficult. And I save a lot of money.
I understand people wanting to see everything, but I also see the value prop of doing this, especially in light of the NAR litigation. Having just sold and bought a house in the last 2 months, I am pretty current on what is happening.
Depending on the market, you may be noticing an uptick in open houses compared to the last few years. The reason for this is the NAR litigation. Now, you cant just call a real estate agent and get them to show you a house on a whim. You have to sign an agreement letting them represent you. That means they are now your agent, regardless of whether you are buying a MLS property, or a FSBO. That means you are also coming to an understanding of what you will pay the agent if you buy something. That is the impact of the litigation. Now buyers are on the hook for the commission to their agent. Yes, you can still negotiate having the seller pay it, but you are having to make those decisions that you never really needed to make before.
With the agent that you choose, you determine what subset of properties you will have to choose from. In my local area, we have a couple of MLS’s. If your agent is not in all of them, you will only have the option to see the houses associated with the MLS they are part of.
With the current interest rate situation, there are people out there that are interested in selling, but they do not want to “list” the house in the MLS, because they have a specific price they want and if they don’t get it immediately, then the public sites like Zillow and Redfin show how long it has been on the market, and after a couple of weeks any offers that you would get will come with a discount. Sometimes a very steep discount.
It took me 5 months to sell my house, and I did get a premium of about 20% over what I paid for it 4 years ago, but I had offers that were under what I paid for it. Saavy buyers want to avoid this type of scenario.
RE Agents have always been able to accomodate this with what are called “pocket listings”. A pocket listing is one where you let a real estate agent know you are willing to sell, but it is not put on the MLS. It is known to your agent and their brokerage. If someone wants a house, your agent can tell the buyer they know of one that is exactly what they want, but it is not on the market. They can arrange to let the buyer see the house because they have a relationship with you, but now instead of making an offer based on a list price, the buyer needs to provide a “make me move” offer. These are not lowball offers.
Compass is simply extending that to their entire corporate infrastructure. List with us, we will promote you through our private network until such time as we both agree to promote you to the full MLS. This makes sense for the sellers, and the agents. The sellers can get more legit offers, agents get higher commissions, and Zillow and Redfin can go to h. e. double toothpicks.
I forgot to mention the reason for the uptick in open houses. The ONLY way you can see a house on the market without having an agent under contract now is to go to an open house!
So you show up at the open house, there is an agent there, they find out what you like and dislike about the house, what your budget is, etc. Then they tell you they have other properties that they can show you .. you just have to agree to using me as your agent.
Since you are already sitting in a house for sale that has a good chance of being in the neighborhood they want, the size they want, and at the price point they think they can afford, choosing you is a lot safer than picking a name off the internet.
If the agent happens to be from a Compass brokerage, well, they can tell you that they can show you a lot of properties that you wont find on Redfin or Zillow. That is the value prop to the buyers.
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