Robert Reffkin

Compass’ trajectory to becoming the largest brokerage in the country has largely been thanks to Reffkin.

The deep-pocketed brokerage drew a combination of ridicule and ire due to its profligate spending on agent technology and financial incentives, often luring over big names with overly generous splits and company equity. For years, Reffkin maintained Compass was a unicorn tech company with an $8 billion valuation. Its 2021 initial public offering saw that slashed to about $6.4 billion and the stock later traded well below its debut price, undercutting the tech-forward narrative. 

But after rounds of cost-cutting in recent years helped rightsize some of the numbers, Reffkin is making a return to a tried and true strategy: acquisitions. After buying up significant regional brokerages like New York-based Stribling and San Francisco-based Pacific Union in Compass’ early days, Reffkin has recently acquired Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty in its $4 billion deal for Anywhere Real Estate and its hundreds of thousands of agents. 

In between the deals, Reffkin has challenged the industry orthodoxy after a lawsuit over commissions rattled the standing of groups like the National Association of Realtors and the Real Estate Board of New York. His recent aggressive stance — pushing private listings and suing Zillow — comes as part of what many see as a bid to upend the traditional brokerage model and turn Compass into a tech company once and for all.