New York, NY - Friday, April 25, 2025 – Compass, Inc. (NYSE: COMP) (“Compass” or the “Company”), the largest residential real estate brokerage in the United States by sales volume, announces it is taking a stand for homeowner choice and pursuing legal action against the Northwest MLS (NWMLS). This brokerage-owned trade group has the most restrictive homeowner marketing rules in the country. 

In every other state, and with every other MLS, homeowners have the freedom to choose to pre-market their home before it goes public. Outside of Washington, homeowners can choose to list their home as a Compass Private Exclusive or Compass Coming Soon and receive the benefits of pre-marketing: they can test price, gain critical positioning insights, retain their privacy and confidentiality, and generate early demand without public price drops or accumulating days on the market.

The NWMLS is not a neutral player. It's a monopolist—nearly 100% of the residential real estate transactions facilitated by Seattle area real estate brokers were listed on the NWMLS. NWMLS has successfully prevented any meaningful threat to itself and its owner-brokerages by adopting and enforcing a series of rules designed to force anyone buying or selling a home in Washington to do so through the NWMLS. Unless stopped, the NWMLS will continue depriving homeowners in Washington of choice, competition, and the benefits of pre-marketing.

“Compass is proud to support Washington homeowners who are asking the right question: Why are we the only homeowners in America without a choice in how we sell our homes?” said Compass Founder and CEO Robert Reffkin. “The NWMLS system wasn’t built to serve homeowners – it was built to preserve the monopolistic power of the NWMLS. We’re proud to stand with homeowners who want the freedom to choose how their homes are sold.”

“We’ve seen strong demand from Seattle homeowners for pre-marketing options. When given the choice, 36% of homeowners working with a Compass agent in Seattle chose to pre-market their home as a Compass Private Exclusive, which was done by NWMLS rules at the time,” said Compass Regional Vice President Cris Nelson. 

Compass is committed to providing Washington homeowners with the same options as homeowners in every other state who have the flexibility to choose to pre-market their home through the Compass 3-Phased Marketing Strategy in order to maximize its value. Compass research found that Compass listings pre-marketed as Compass Private Exclusives and/or a Compass Coming Soon before going on the public market (MLS) were associated with better homeowner outcomes, including:

  • Pre-marketed homes were associated with an average 2.9%1 higher close price.

  • Pre-marketed listings received accepted offers 20%2 faster, on average, after listing on the MLS.

  • Listings that were pre-marketed were about 30%2 less likely to experience a price drop after listing on the MLS.

On behalf of all Compass agents and their homeowners, Compass thanks the many MLSs and their respective CEOs, who represent the majority of our markets, that allow homeowners the choice they deserve in how they market their home.  

1 Findings from the internal analysis were based on a hedonic regression model that examined Compass residential closed sell-side transactions from January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024, nationally and for all residential property types (single family, co-op, condo, townhouse, and condop). For 2024, Compass pre-marketed listings are associated with an average 2.9% increase in the final close price versus Compass listings that went directly to the MLS. The estimated effect has a 95% confidence interval ranging from 1.9% and 3.9%. This finding may vary depending on market conditions and seasonality. The results provided are based on current data and methodologies, and should not be interpreted as definitive predictions of future outcomes.

2 Findings are descriptive statistics and compare the average of Compass residential listings that went active on a MLS and were pre-marketed as a Compass Private Exclusive and/or Compass Coming Sooner vs. the average of Compass residential listings that went active on a MLS but were not pre-marketed as a Compass Private Exclusive and/or Compass Coming Soon from January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024. Price drop history is included for geographies where price drop history is available from MLS. Source: Compass data.

About Compass
Compass is the largest residential real estate brokerage in the United States by sales volume. Founded in 2012 and based in New York City, Compass provides an end-to-end platform that empowers its residential real estate agents to deliver exceptional service to seller and buyer clients. The platform includes an integrated suite of cloud-based software for customer relationship management, marketing, client service, brokerage services and other critical functionality, all custom-built for the real estate industry. Compass agents utilize the platform to grow their business, save time and manage their business more effectively. For more information on how Compass empowers real estate agents, one of the largest groups of small business owners in the country, please visit www.compass.com.