Compass vs Zillow vs Everyone : The Listing War Just Got Worse

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Compass vs Zillow vs Everyone : The Listing War Just Got Worse

Most agents think this is just another industry shift it’s not.

Private listings, exclusive inventory, and portal wars are changing how real estate actually works and most agents don’t fully understand what’s happening yet.

Because here’s the truth:

This isn’t just about listings it’s about control, visibility, and where the money flows next.

If you don’t understand this shift, you could be operating at a disadvantage without even realizing it.



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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

If he does private listings, we will also do private listings. How is it not a respite violation that compasses sending leads?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

I think most people are confused. So what the heck is actually going on out there? I mean, everybody's hiding listings. People are doing all sorts of weird stuff. Our company's this, your company's that. Like it's it's it's insane. So what is actually happening?

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Yeah, so I'm looking up a thing real quick because somebody just posted, um, I gotta find it, just posted a chart from searches for pre- or private listings pre-market. It is up like 400% on Google in the last two weeks. So let me break it down real quick because I am actually, actually an expert right now, um, because this shit has pissed me off so much. I'm digging in to make sure I know what's up. So let's step back. Compass, second, third largest company in the country, takes over anywhere brands, you know, Cobalt Banker, ERA, Century 21, Southerby's, Betterhomes and Gardens, Cochrane, Cardis, all of them, right? Just different milkshake flavors uh from Sonic. So what they did is they took them over, and then Compass has always tried to buck the system. They're a venture capitalist company. They started from just a lot of money going into markets, buying companies, and none of this is negative. Buying companies, buying teams, that's how they gained market share. But they're pretty traditional brokerage. They just have really they had really cool marketing. So that's how they got them. So they've always been a disruptor and they're trying to disrupt more. So what has happened is Robert Refkin, who is the owner or CEO or chairman or however it works with stock traded companies, he has always had in Compass exclusive listings. So Wayne, this means if you're an agent and you've got a client that wants to list their house, you can. I don't know if it's mandatory, I don't know the rules, you go exclusive. So it goes on their back end of their website that only you as a compass agent or your clients can log in and see. So just your listings. Okay. The second part to that is once those don't sell, they have private listings or coming soon that go on the front side of their website. So you could, as an agent, just go log into compass.com and see what listings are out there in your market now. And then if it doesn't sell, they'll put on the MLS for all us peasants to be able to eat on. That's what is happening, right? So Robert came to Inman back in uh January, I was there, and was saying that he thinks that clients, he what he what he beats his chest on are that clients should have the autonomy to choose how to market their listings, not be bound by associations or MLSs. That's his thing. So after that, he didn't say it in in New York. He came out and said, We're going exclusive with Redfin, who is now owned by Rocket Mortgage, largest or second largest mortgage company in the country, maybe the world. I don't know. I don't keep it the world stuff. And what they did is they said, hey, I'm gonna put my coming soons, so not the exclusive, still behind the paywall. But once they put it to the public, they're gonna send it to Redfin. Redfin's gonna have it on there, nowhere else, not Realtor, not Zillow, not my own IDX feeds, just there. And I don't know all these details because I have not looked it up. I just I've read it one time, but those leads will be funneled back to the compass/slash anywhere agents that put them there. Rocket said they're going to give preferred pricing to people that buy houses through Redfin. So I have a problem, a lot of problems. So that's the for that's the first dong show we've we've walked into. I can tell you the rest of them after we get going.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, this is insane. Okay, so keep going. What's the next gong show? So what does that mean to?

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah, so on stage, when Robert said this, after that, there was like five different CEOs of companies up there. Not, I'm not gonna say each specific one said this, but it was, you know, Remax and Kelly Williams and EXP. Um uh I forget the other ones, they're really large. They pretty much said if he does this, if he does private listings, we will also do private listings. We have to. Not that we want to, but we're gonna have to do it to survive. It's a competition thing because your agents can be looking at you going, where's our private listing thing? Compass has it, let's go, right? So not soon after, Kelly Williams, Remax, United Reality, at least those three, have teamed up with Zilla. So now Zillow is allowing coming soons to be on their site. No exclusivities, just coming soons from those three major brands. So it's a little bit better than what Redfkin was doing, but not a lot. Like, real quick, what the hell is different between coming soons marketing to everyone and it here? Dude, I had a not a debate. I was answering a uh question on Facebook to a person I admire, so it didn't turn into debate, but they're like, what's up with the pre-market? Like, there is no pre-marketing. You're either marketing or you're not marketing. Yeah. Like I don't understand the pre-marketing.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

This is like me staying in front of you with two books and being like, hey, this book is coming soon. You can buy it right now. This book is on the market, you can buy it right now. Which one do you want? And you're like, what do you mean this one's coming soon? I can buy it right now. I'm like, oh yeah, no, you can buy it right now. You can also buy this one. Like, there is no pre-marketing.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Like you said, like I'm just marketing.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yep, yep, yep. So that went down and they said that's a step better than what, because they're not just they're not just one company, it's three companies filing in. And then EXP came out almost immediately, maybe the next day, and said, we're gonna go one step better, and I do mean better, and said, we're not gonna be exclusive to one portal. We're gonna go on realtor.com, homes.com, and comeonhome.com, I think it's called, or something like that. Never heard of it. So now they're gonna push all of their coming soons to those three portals so they're not just portal, you know, stuck on one portal.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

So they are those lead right to Google and everything else, right? So they're they're getting picked up on the stuff. So they basically just put them, they're they put their EXP put their coming soon just out to the open market for lack of a better word. Yeah, that's what the most aggressive way.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Yeah, and then that's what the Zillow one did too, right? So the problem I have, a couple things. One, Zillow's always been uh clear cooperation advocates because per NAR rules or used to be, they've they've rolled them back a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, and they won it all, right? They're like, here we all need to get along, aka send everything here. Nobody should hold anything back for the public. Yeah, aka, we would like to make sure we're selling everything. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah. So that's the thing. So Zillow's like, so here's my questions with all of this. How is it not a RESPA violation that compasses sending leads to Red to uh Redfin and they're getting preferential treatment and leads back, and there might be some compensation or commission sharing in that that thing. I'm not 100% per positive on that one. So how's that?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Is it exclusive? So dude, RESPA only applies to the agent doing 10 to 25 deals a year that that they can find. That is the only people that RESPA, I I'm not even joking. Like RESPA applies to nobody that has a checkbook. Yeah, like RESPA has become the greatest joke in this industry because it is being violated left, right, and center. I don't know who's in charge of of mandating RESPA at the highest level.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Like CFPB.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Whoever they are, they're not doing crap. Yeah, they have to like it's it's it's it's a joke because everyone's so we keep saying that they're violating REST, but it doesn't even matter. The only people that have to worry about violating REST Ba, it seems like, are the people that are gonna get the$100,000,$50,000 fine because they're an individual um and and they they can they can't fight for themselves. But everybody else is violating these rules we say we have left, right, and center, and it's become a joke.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

So here's my question with all this Redfin Zillow doesn't pick one. I'm not any of those brands, so I can't go put my listing on my pre-listing on Zillow. So they've boxed me out. Although I've paid them, I don't know, I'd probably say over a million dollars in my career now. Nah, maybe not, maybe 500,000 in my career on leads to Zillow. But now they're saying you're not one of these three, you can't put it on here. But let's let's also take one step back. What is this doing for the sellers? Let's answer that. What's up with the what do the buyers get out of this? What's it where's the other half of the population get out of coming soon listings? What's your thoughts? What are your initial reactions? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Hey, real quick, you know how YouTube works. Like and subscribe so we know this is working and it keeps pushing the content out.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah, this is what we do as a passion project. Wayne got his own coaching, I got my real estate, but we've come together because we want y'all to learn from all our scars and mistakes. So that like and subscribe means the world to us because it means you care and it means we can keep giving and also it makes us look cool with my mom.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Absolutely. So so if I was advocating for, which I I think would be very hard for me to do, the only thing I could advocate for is hey, when we sell uh, you know, it's like when we had a real estate team. Hey, when we sell a house in the house, it usually goes really, really well. You know what I mean? Everybody's taken care of, we have a great job, we know there's good intentions on both sides of like I can't think of another, you're not getting more money necessarily. I don't think so. I don't I don't think you're getting more money. I think you're probably getting less because less buyers are seeing it. More demand increases price. So you're marketing it to less people and you're trying to pretend that's gonna bring you more money. That the economics of that don't really shake out for me. And I think what it does is it forces buyers to look for a fourth option, which is they go to Perplexity or Claude or whatever. They're like, hey, look at all the search engines out there and pull me a list. I it's gonna it just becomes a crapshoot where they're trying to check five different places, and I don't think it's helping anyone on the consumer side.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Okay, let's take sellers, right? So sellers or sellers agents. Um I'm gonna call pre pre-marketing or pre-listing or coming soon, whatever the hell you want to call them. I do think there's a couple of carve outs, and most MLSs allow that. Like they'll allow you to list something so you can start your fiduciary duties of advising a client, but it's not ready to go in the market. They're doing some renovations, they got to get the house staged. Like that makes sense. But most MLSs, you're not allowed to market during this period. Now, do agents still call some friends? Do people in the office know? Sure. But overall, they're not allowed per clear cooperation. If you market within 24 hours, it has to be in the MLS. So what I call it is price fishing. It is, you know what, seller? I tell you what, you want 50,000 more than I think it's worth. Let's just do coming soon. It's gonna go on X website, X portal. Let's see what happens. You know the cool part is if it doesn't sell, nobody's gonna know because we're not tracking days on market. That's a that's a plus, right? Could be, could be, yep. But with that is uh hiding numbers, meaning days on market. So what did days on market tell buyers and sellers? Like the health of the market. Educate some. Yeah, how fast things are moving in the neighborhood. It helps appraisers know if this is a distressed neighborhood or not. So I think you're bamboozling buyers now because they're gonna see it show up on the MLS and go, zero days on market, take my money, and it's been on the market for 90 days and nobody's bought it. So would that change your offer if you knew something's been on the market 90 days versus zero days? Absolutely, right? I would.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Well, and and I think that it it it also hurts the small brokerages in a sense. So like say, say you're at Compass or or one of these other ones, and you go, look, hey, we have this many agents, you're with this other little brokerage, you're not gonna see 20% of the homes that are offered for two weeks or for a month or for two months. Whatever it's like, you're not even gonna see these houses because you're not part of our little tiny world. Yet at the same time, if they're putting them on their website, like most agents can go in and see them anyway. It's it's not like it's impossible to see. We've just made it so complicated. And I feel like the most of this is smoke and mirrors. Yeah, and it's all shiny this, shiny that, but but it's not we're not actually solving anything, we're not actually helping anyone except for maybe some some of the people at the top that are getting paid more in the aside agreements because they're calling something quote unquote exclusive.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yeah, and my other thing is even though Compass is now a large brand, they are multiple brands with multiple brokers in the same market. So, therefore, how's this not conspiring against other companies, which you're not allowed to do? How is this boxing people out, which you're not allowed? Even though they're owned by the same parent company, that doesn't matriculate down to real estate law in most states. So you're sorry. So then how's it how's it helpful for buyers? What do buyers get out of this?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Because they're just more confusing buyer's market. They have more confusion, they have to look more places, they end up dragging their feet more because all of a sudden they found out about a house that they couldn't see on the other one the less. It just makes it harder for them to have good comparison, it makes it harder for them to know they're seeing all the data, it makes it harder for them to make decisions. Agents can't rightfully say, hey, here's everything that's on the market, because now that's a lie. They can say, here now is 72% of the houses on the market. Good luck finding the other, you know, 27%, right? Like I think it makes it very, very hard. I think this is all a play for money, it's all a play for legitimacy as as as things um come together. I I don't think any of this is about helping the individual agent or helping the the consumer. And my heart breaks because I don't think there's anyone in the governmental realm that is actually holding anybody accountable. And and and there's no there's no actual consumer advocate in that's actually fighting for for our people right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Two things to wrap that up. We've got a we I have a friend, mutual friend with my business partner, is looking for a house in Kansas City, and I guess it's already kind of rampant there. He's had to show specific house buying agency agreements for like seven different ones because each company didn't have access to the other company's listings. So he's had to it's taken him four times as long to find a house with extra inventory, because you know, St. Louis ain't popping right now, and they are having to sign with you to see your listing, with me to see my like maybe not the listing part, somehow with different people in different companies is what they're doing. But I agree with you. I think that um, well, I don't think you said this, but this is what I'm gonna say. I think we need a government a national government oversight, like we do.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

And and and I think that that's where the I mean the realtor organization is dead, in my opinion, but I think that's where the realtor organization lobbies for hey, we need statewide MLSs, and here's how need to be controlled. This needs to be open. Here's what it takes to protect the realtors, here's what it takes to protect the consumers, and we need to shut all this this monkey business down.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

I disagree to a little bit. I I'm a big believer in AR and I think they do a good job. I think what Refkin is saying, and he said on stage, and you can go find it, your associations should never fine you for doing something wrong. Okay, cool. But here's the problem we're not a stock. We're not controlled by the FTC. We're not, you know, you say something, if you're a public figure and you say something in a tweet that affects stock prices, they fine you millions of dollars or take your stock. I mean, they so there is a ruler out there. We don't have that. So you know what we did over 110 years ago? We came up with a code of ethics that we all agreed to abide by, and then we went down to the micro level and created MLSs and realtor associations because we self-policed. We said, this is the wild effing west, let's make our own thing. So you know what? He's wrong because the bar association takes people's license all the damn time.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

You know, everybody so I I would I would agree with you on that. I just I think we set up the police and then the police sold us out, right? I I I I think I think that the police have in most ways stepped away from the controls because it became about money, it became about short-term wins, it became about these other things. And I think that um I do, I think that we need a a governing body that is holding to the consumer, that is holding to um all this other stuff. And we we talked about all of that and people yelled and shouted and whatever it is, but um nobody's really, really doing it well right now. Yeah, no, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

I agree. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

So what's your advice to the individual agent?

SPEAKER_02 14:27

What's your what's your take to the individual agent? Mine would be mine, if I was in this company or outside this company, I wouldn't do coming soon. I wouldn't do just listed. I would take my time, I would get the house ready, I would get it polished, and I would get it out in front of as many eyeballs as possible because no matter what your consumer signs or what they think, they're always going to go back and be like, if it didn't work, it's because you did this. No, the more eyeballs, more people see it, the more possible possibility of selling it. That's your job. It's not to keep it in-house, it's not to check a box. And I think Robert's doing this so he can keep as many agents in his company from leaving, which naturally happens when you do a big merger, and he's doing this over here. So you're paying attention to the shiny object, and I bet he's doing something on the side where he's about to let go of some of his companies. He's doing something. And what he's really doing is trying to drive stock prices. That's his job. He is not a realtor, he is not in the real estate business, he's a venture capitalist that bought a real estate company.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Right. And and and good for him. Like, and you know what the reality is like, go push the boundaries, but we need a governing body that goes, that's too far. Like, appreciate the effort, right? But like, oop, you colored outside the lines there, right? So, like, as business owners, like, go push the boundaries, right? See what you can do. Like, all I love that, but the problem is right now we don't have a governing body that's going, and this is where it crossed the line. And here's the lines, come on back, right? I think those things at the end of the day, I think for most agents, I think you're spot on with you, better get phenomenal at pricing and it better be ready to go day one. That's my thing. Like, if you are two or three percent above price, you just screwed your clients and they're gonna sit on the market another two months instead of selling the first two weeks. Like it is narrow right now. Like, nail the pricing, nail the condition right off the bat. And um, I would not get too worried about all these brokerage things. I I think that this is a my guess is this is a non-issue 12 months from now, 16 months from 18 months from now. Like, I think somebody comes along and goes, hey, look, we finally found a way to put them all in one place. Like it's naturally gonna happen. Okay, somebody's gonna make a robot that does it all, and they're gonna turn that into a thing. Whatever, like it's I I think 18 months from like I would not be making big career moves just based on this because I I think it's gonna eventually settle out like uh like most things do.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, until then you need to be checking all these different portals, make sure that your listings locally are showing up so you can uh tell your buyers because they may not be near MLS anymore.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Yep, yep, yep. And and and for the next 12 months, you literally might have to either either train some robots or hire a virtual assistant that is checking six websites a day for your 10 people or right or have it have some sort of cloud bot that is is is pulling all those together in one place because that's naturally what's gonna happen is somebody's gonna figure out some cloud bots, some robots to pull this all together, and then we're gonna go, that was stupid. Okay, now everything's back on Zillow.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

So here's what's gonna happen in our next video, guys. You're gonna like and subscribe this one so you can get the next one in your inbox, but we're gonna talk about some hacks and some tips for you as buyers agents to figure out how to manage all these different sites. We're gonna give you five things that you can implement tomorrow so you're not missing potential listings for your buyers and your buyers don't forget about you and go somewhere else. But you gotta hit that like and subscribe. One, it makes me feel good. Two, it makes me win a bet against Wayne that people like this. And three, it needs to come to your inbox, you don't have to think about it. And four, it just makes me feel like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

I'm gonna please just so hit that thing. Go like, go subscribe, do it right now.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

There's a little bell too.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I think bing bing ding. Yeah, ding ding.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

All right, next video is coming up. Watch it. Hey, real quick, if you're liking this content, imagine having a full day immersed with people that are on this like us that are learning from each other.

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