Compass Sues Northwest Multiple Listing Service Over Private Listing Ban

Compass has taken its battle over private listings to the courts.

The brokerage filed a lawsuit against Seattle-based Northwest Multiple Listing Service, accusing it of being a “monopolist” and engaging in “anticompetitive” conduct that has harmed “homeowners, Compass and Compass brokers in the Seattle area.”

Compass alleged that NWMLS changed and ignored its own rules, which prohibited the brokerage from using office exclusives, a key prong of its marketing strategy.

On April 15, NWMLS cut off Compass’ access to its data feed which, effectively cutting out the brokerage and its client from access to the listing service on which “nearly 100 percent of the residential real estate transactions” in the Seattle area are completed, leading some Compass clients to cancel their contracts, the lawsuit alleges.

The next day, NWMLS reversed course, but has continued to require brokerages to enter homes on the MLS immediately.

Compass is alleging that NWMLS and its owner-brokers violated antitrust laws.

“The NWMLS system wasn’t built to serve homeowners – it was built to preserve the monopolistic power of the NWMLS. We’re proud to stand with homeowners who want the freedom to choose how their homes are sold,” CEO Robert Reffkin said in a statement.

NWMLS did not immediately return a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes as Compass has faced increasing industry pushback from its effort to list homes as office exclusives or on Compass.com without showing them on the MLS or syndicating them to aggregators as part of its three-phased marketing strategy.

Earlier this month, Zillow also pushed back on Compass’ marketing strategy when it released a new policy that requires publicly marketed homes to be submitted to the MLS and uploaded to Zillow within 24 hours. Listings that don’t comply will be banned from the website.

The lawsuit is also an escalation in the bitter back-and-forth over the use of private listings that has so far taken place mostly on social media. Compass CEO Robert Reffkin has made a number of posts in recent months decrying NWMLS’s ban on private listings.

In March, Reffkin took direct aim at NWMLS on Instagram, writing it was “the ONLY MLS in the country that has until now prevented homesellers from utilizing Compass Private Exclusives to protect them from the risk of days on market and price drop history.”