Compass, Zillow Shake Things Up

Compass and Zillow made moves in the platform wars this week, but for agents in New York City, it’s likely much ado about nothing.

On Tuesday, Compass agreed to drop the lawsuit it filed against Zillow over its listing access standards that included a provision barring agents from listing homes previously marketed outside of multiple listing services for more than a day.

News of the dismissal came after Zillow announced a partnership between brokerages such as Keller Williams and REMAX alongside its new tool, Zillow Preview, which allows agents with those firms to upload their listings to Zillow before launching them on the MLS. The platform’s new pre-marketing option followed a similar deal between Compass and Redfin that allowed the brokerage to advertise its “Coming Soon” listings on the portal.

While the announcements certainly made headlines, some industry players say the changes won’t amount to much in New York, where off-market wheeling and dealing is already a fixture of the market. Plus, the residential listing service maintained by the Real Estate Board of New York already allows for some pre-marketing options, including marking listings as participants only or coming soon.

“There’s been this big narrative about seller choice, but hello, sellers have always had a choice, and they continue to,” said Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman.

Also, the partnerships so far don’t appear to impact the city’s preeminent platform: Streeteasy. Zillow Preview does not extend to New York City, and while Streeteasy is a subsidiary of Zillow, the platform has not yet announced a similar program, though a spokesperson for Streeteasy said it was exploring New York City-specific options.

If Streeteasy does roll out its own pre-marketing tool, Zillow’s existing partnership with brokerages wouldn’t necessarily apply, as any new tools from Streeteasy would open the door for new partnerships, according to a spokesperson.

What remains unclear is whether New York City agents under the Compass International umbrella will be able to pre-market listings on Streeteasy should the portal introduce an option. For agents to access Zillow Preview, their brokerage must enter into an agreement with the platform, and if Streeteasy adopts similar rules, that would mean Compass would have to sign a deal with the portal — a move that seems unlikely considering the controversy between the two companies.

That could cause a wrinkle for New York City agents under the Compass umbrella who might prefer to use Streeteasy to pre-market their properties over Redfin, which, as executive vice president of Howard Hanna Elegran Real Estate Michael Rossi put it, is a “non-entity” in the New York market.

However, Compass maintains that despite its deal with Redfin — which extends to all of the brands in its fold including the Corcoran Group and Sotheby’s International — its agents are permitted to advertise their Coming Soon listings wherever they want.

Ultimately, the news coming out of residential real estate this week likely won’t amount to much for New York, at least not yet. However, Freedman and Rossi agreed that the announcements have spurred confusion among agents and consumers.

“There’s going to be a lot of ‘splaining to do,” Freedman said. “People are confused.”

NYC Deal of the Week

The priciest deal to hit the city register this week was for a condo at Gary Barnett’s Central Park Tower, which sold for $24.5 million. The buyer of the 4,300-square-foot apartment is an entity called Three Great Kids LLC, which lists an address in Montville, New Jersey.

Unit 81E, which traded for roughly $5,700 per square foot, has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It also features ceilings over 11 feet, a formal entryway and views of Central Park.