Real estate brokerage Compass is doubling down with gusto on its strategy of building an exclusive inventory database outside traditional Multiple Listing Services (MLS), despite industry concerns about reduced market transparency and potential conflicts of interest.
During Tuesday’s earnings call, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin revealed that 35% of the company’s 22,138 listings are now either “Compass Private Exclusive” or “Compass Coming Soon.” These are properties available only through Compass agents or the company’s website. In some markets, this figure exceeds 50%.
“By growing our unique inventory and marrying that with our end-to-end platform, which has agent-level search and consumer search at a level that no other brokerage firm in the industry has, we believe more and more buyers will search Compass.com and use Compass agents,” Reffkin told shareholders and analysts.
The strategy has drawn sharp criticism from competitors who worry it could enable “double-dipping,” where agents retain the entire commission from both sides of a transaction. Critics say this limits consumer choice by forcing buyers to work with Compass agents to access listings.
However, Reffkin defended the approach, comparing it to common practices in new construction.
“The reason homebuilders list off the MLS is to protect their listings from days on market and public price drop history, and to ensure that all buyer inquiries are directed to the listing agent that they hired,” he said.
An investor on the call asked Reffkin if down the road, Compass could “potentially get a license fee from cross-posting” its private listings to the portals, allowing the company to “perhaps charge for access while keeping the negative insights off those listings?”
Reffkin didn’t answer the question directly, but said there were “wonderful, beautiful things” that came along with the private listings initiative.
“In the long run, hopefully not too many years from now, every homeowner in the country knows if you want to sell your most valuable asset…that this company called Compass can help you maximize that value. That’s what this is all about,” Reffkin said.
According to Compass data, properties pre-marketed through the brokerage’s private channels before hitting the MLS received offers 20% faster once publicly listed and were 30% less likely to require price reductions. The company also claims these properties commanded 2.9% higher average closing prices than direct MLS listings.
Reffkin specifically challenged the National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) Clear Cooperation Policy, which requires properties to be listed on the MLS within one business day of public marketing. He argued the policy “harms homeowner value by taking away homeowner choice to publicly pre-market their homes off the MLS with their agents.”
“In the United States of America, a trade group should not be allowed to force every homeowner in the country to sell their most valuable asset at a discount,” Reffkin said, noting that homebuilders and developers are already exempt from the policy.
The company reported that approximately 7,500 listings are marked as private exclusives or coming soon within the Compass network, with properties evenly split above and below the $1 million price point. The adoption rate is catching on; 55% of new February listings started as off-MLS properties, he noted.
Reffkin emphasized that the strategy provides better tools for agents rather than explicitly driving in-house sales.
“The reason why we do things is because we want to give our agents an edge,” Reffkin said. “This is a plan that is free. And it works uniquely within Compass because of our network of 33,000 top agents where you can effectively access millions of buyers without the risk of portal sites and MLS exposure.”
