It was a tumultuous time for residential real estate’s power players in 2025. The country’s largest brokerage gobbled up some competitors — while going toe-to-toe with some others.
The platform wars only heated up as new power players emerged.
And in the country’s two largest cities, natural disasters and political changes threatened business as usual.
Below are the five stories that defined residential real estate in 2025:
- Compass and Anywhere Real Estate agreed to join forces
The two residential giants announced in September that Compass would acquire Anywhere in an all-equity deal valued at $1.6 billion.
The proposed merger would bring more than 300,000 agents across some of the most well-known brands in the industry — including Anywhere’s subsidiaries the Corcoran Group, Sotheby’s International Real Estate and Coldwell Banker — under the same umbrella, led by Compass CEO Robert Reffkin. Reffkin
At the time of the announcement, Reffkin said Anywhere’s brands would maintain their independence, though some agents with the conglomerate have expressed concerns over the merger, expected to close in 2026.
News of the acquisition came amid increasing consolidation within the industry, including by Compass, which earlier this year closed another deal to acquire @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate.
- Compass sued Zillow over its listing policies
Months of tension between Compass and Zillow came to a head in June, when the brokerage filed a lawsuit against the aggregator, alleging its new listing policies violated antitrust law.
The rules, which Zillow announced in April and enacted in June, barred agents from adding listings to the platform if those listings were previously marketed outside of the MLS.
In the lawsuit, Compass billed the move as an effort to dampen competition from the brokerage, which had earlier this year doubled-down on its use of private exclusive listings, though Zillow has disputed that the rules were aimed at any one brokerage.
Executives from the firms landed in a Manhattan courtroom in November, while attorneys from both companies argued over whether a federal judge should block Zillow’s rules while the lawsuit is pending.
- CoStar waged war against its competitors
In July, Costar Group sued Zillow, claiming that its competitor’s use of more than thousands of proprietary images on its listing website amounted to “mass infringement.”
The lawsuit was the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive tactics taken by CoStar CEO Andy Florance in his efforts to break into the residential home search after dominating the commercial market for much of the last decade.
Florance spent the last few years duking it out with Realtor.com — trading lawsuits and barbs over pageviews — before setting his sights on the top dog in Zillow this year. In addition to the lawsuit, Florance announced that CoStar would promote listings banned by Zillow’s new listing policy (see above).
Florance has also criticized Zillow and Redfin’s $100 million syndication deal for multifamily listings. He threatened to sue Redfin for displaying his firm’s allegedly proprietary photos through that deal with Zillow.
Months later, the Federal Trade Commission sued Zillow and Redfin, alleging that the deal between the platforms violated antitrust laws.
- The Palisades Fire rocked Los Angeles
Los Angeles suffered one of its most destructive and deadliest wildfires in recent history when the wildfires tore through the city at the start of the year.
Two fires — the Palisades and the Eaton Fires — consumed 59 square miles, destroyed over 16,000 structures and left 28 dead over the course of January. A third blaze — the Hughes Fire — covered roughly 10,000 acres in just a day.
The damages to residential property alone topped $50 billion, according to one estimate.
The most affected areas, like the Palisades and Altadena, are just getting back on their feet as land listings begin to trade hands and new construction begins.
More than 340 projects have started construction in the Palisades, and the first move-in ready home was announced at the end of November, according to the mayor’s office.
- Zohran Mamdani won NYC’s mayoral election
Residential agents braced for impact in the months before New York City’s mayoral election.
Leading up to the November vote, Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was already projected to defeat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, an outcoming many in the industry were fiercely campaigning against. Brokers, particularly from rival markets such as Miami, warned that a victory for the 34-year-old Assemblymember could push wealthy New Yorkers to leave the city in droves.
But Mamdani prevailed, making history as the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest in more than a century. Once the results were called, some of the mayor-elect’s most outspoken opponents softened their criticism and vowed to work with him on real estate-related issues.
As Mamdani prepares to take office in January, he’s also meeting with developers, lenders and investors to discuss his housing goals.
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