Compass Opens Up Private Listings

Compass is opening its private listings to the industry — as long as you follow its rules.

The brokerage, which has been waging a multi-front campaign on its ability to market listings without publishing them on the MLS and syndicating them to aggregators, announced that it would make all of its inventory available to brokerages and MLSes that adhere to its policies.

Compass is asking that brokerages and MLSes agree not to alter or monetize listings in any way, and ensure that agents won’t be fined or banned for sharing listings.

The announcement follows Compass’ suit against listings giant Zillow over what it calls the “Zillow Ban,” a policy that bans listings from its website if they are publicly marketed for more than 24 hours without being uploaded to the platform.

Compass has been criticized for pushing its three-phase marketing strategy, which entails listing homes without publishing them on the MLS or syndicating them to sites like Zillow, as a means of double-ending deals and attracting agents.

“There are narratives circulating that make false accusations,” said a spokesperson for Compass. “By showing that we will make our exclusive inventory available to anyone who agrees not to alter or monetize the listing and keep the listing agent front and center, we reinforce what we have said all along: At Compass, we co-broke with everyone.”

Compass provided examples of monetization, which include selling buyer inquiries to third-party agents, advertising third-party companies on homeowner listings and selling data to financial institutions.

Compass has upped its aggressiveness in recent months in an effort to legitimize its marketing strategy. In addition to its lawsuit against Zillow, Compass informed the National Association of Realtors and other listing services that it would not be complying with the Clear Cooperation Policy, which requires publicly marketed listings to be uploaded to the MLS within 24 hours.

Its move to conditionally share listings with brokerages and MLSes strikes directly at the guardrails that Zillow and NAR have tried to institute.

“Zillow bans listings marketed outside of its platform, and CCP fines agents for sharing listings outside of their MLS platforms,” a spokesperson for Compass said. “What, hopefully, Compass’ offer makes clear is that the CCP and Zillow bans are not rules against off-market listings; they are rules against sharing listings outside of their respective platforms.”

While MLSes, which are in charge of implementing CCP, could likely guarantee that Compass will not be fined, it’s not clear how brokerages or listing services can ensure that Compass agents will not have their listings banned from Zillow.

In its lawsuit against Zillow, Compass claimed that the website’s policy was designed in response to the brokerage’s business model.

“Put plainly, Zillow has granted itself the power to ban every Compass Private Exclusive listing from going to Zillow because of the way in which Compass markets and executes its Private Exclusive listing strategy internally and externally,” the brokerage said in the complaint.