by Jim the Realtor | Mar 13, 2025 | 2025, Commission Lawsuit, Compass, Realtors Talking Shop |
Here’s the full story so far but you know what triggered this move.
Warren has to be as madder than Reffkin over the arbitrary penalties from the NAR, and their vig was 5x what Compass had to pay:
What will be the impact locally?
Combining the #1 and #2 brokerages will give us 1,800 to 2,000 agents who did $10 billion in volume last year. It should give us at least 30% market share in San Diego County, which is what Reffkin wants to have in the Top 30 metro areas. There will probably be more consolidations too.
If you’re an agent, come on over!
by Jim the Realtor | Mar 13, 2025 | Compass, Pocket Listings |
Everyone talks badly about Robert Reffkin/Compass and our stand against the CCP.
It’s because the industry is so sensitive about the thought of agents hoarding their listings off-market to sell them to their own buyers or to buyers represented by other in-house agents. To what extent it is actually happening doesn’t matter – just the thought bugs people.
Off-market sales have happened at all brokerages since the beginning of time. But for those who believe that every home should be exposed to all buyers, it makes them think that shenanigans are in play.
On February 21st, I did this blog post where I described reasons for sellers and agents to sell off-market:
- The allure of an insider deal can cause a buyer to pay more – they are sexy deals.
- Buyers don’t have the benefit of open-market exposure to test the price.
- It keeps the bozo agents from screwing up deals.
When forming opinions about off-market sales, let’s factor in the market conditions.
We are screaming towards a buyer’s market, and it’s already upon us in some areas. The last time we had a buyer’s market was fifteen years ago – which nobody remembers – and it’s been the exact opposite over the last five years.
You will know it’s a buyer’s market when you hear more people saying that it’s not a good time to sell.
It will lead to conversations like this: “Hey Jim, I’ve heard horror stories from friends and family who are trying to sell their home and nobody is coming by – they have no showings!”
“I don’t want that to happen to me, so sell my house by any means necessary. I still want all my money, and if you think selling my house off-market will accomplish that, then do it!”
When potential sellers see unsold listings stacking up, they are going to consider alternatives, but:
- Selling to an instant-cash flipper might seem more enticing, except they want a 30% discount.
- Renting the house out is a terrible idea if you think prices might go down later.
- Going on the open market at less than the dream price doesn’t sound good either.
In a buyer’s market, the selling choices seem bleak. It causes potential sellers to jump at a sexy option like selling off-market – if that will get them their money. They aren’t going to take a discount off-market. Instead, they will imagine that it’s the best chance to sell for their price, which is all that matters to them.
Yesterday’s bombshell announcement that Ketchmark will be suing the brokerages that support the Clear Cooperation Policy should be the end of the CCP. Who wants more lawsuits?
Reffkin’s hardball stance against the CCP is very understandable when you consider how we got here.
The quasi-governing body known as the National Association of Realtors casually walks into a Missouri court room and gets their lunch handed to them. Then they settled on behalf of the brokerages? Who gave you the power to levy a $52 million fine against Compass without a chance to defend ourselves? Plus, you’ve done nothing to prevent future lawsuits from happening!
Unfortunately, the anger over how the NAR mis-handled the lawsuit/settlement has turned into a battle about the CCP, when they are two different things. If NAR would step up their game and end the threat of lawsuits while providing expert guidance on the CCP issue, then we might listen. But there is no faith that they will do anything, so we need to defend ourselves while providing our own solutions for our clients.
Reffkin is promoting Private Exclusives as part of a 3-Phase marketing plan in order to offer a comprehensive marketing solution. There is no push by Compass management to sell homes off-market. Behind the scenes, all we have is a simple one-liner list of homes throughout the county, and most of them have no photos, no descriptions, and can’t be shown because they are being prepared to go to market. That’s not a vibrant off-market sales environment – it’s just a parking lot. I struggle to even look at it because there’s nothing there. At least not yet.
Yesterday there were 287 Compass private exclusives in San Diego County, and there are 4,653 houses, condos, and mobilehomes actively for sale on the MLS today. How many PEs are going to sell off-market each month? Maybe five or ten? It’s the same at other brokerages and it’s been the norm for 100+ years.
But it has promise because the sellers are going to want an alternative in a buyer’s market.
Though the off-market listings might look sexy to buyers, they better get good help on pinpointing the value under the current market conditions. It is why buyers should embrace bidding wars – because when there isn’t one, it tells you something too.
by Jim the Realtor | Mar 12, 2025 | Coming Soon, Compass, Pocket Listings |
The last debacle by Ketchmark cost Compass $52 million – there is no way that we will keep putting ourselves at risk of more lawsuits. It’s why Robert Reffkin has been so adamant about disolving the Clear Cooperation Policy, even though he doesn’t state it often enough.
Once the CCP is gone, there won’t really be any reason for the National Association of Realtors to stick around much longer. Their blunder of taking the lawsuit too casually and losing it AND forcing a settlement on the big brokerages should cost them their jobs.
I’ll be at a two-day conference next month where the CEO of NAR will be speaking. I know she is going to gloss over this and say everything will be fine – I’m hoping for a chance to ask a couple of questions!
Soon we will be back to pocket listings and in-house sales being the norm, and putting homes on the MLS will be a last resort for many agents.
Every year it gets worse for homebuyers, and this will be the 2025 gut-punch for them.
by Jim the Realtor | Mar 4, 2025 | 2025, Compass, Pocket Listings |
It’s a hot topic among real estate agents, but how widespread are the off-market sales?
We saw that in the last blog post that 155 NSDCC homes that have gone pending this year have already closed escrow. But let’s back it up to get a bigger sample and look at all of the 257 NSDCC sales in 2025 – including those that went pending last year.
Of the 257 sales, only 21 of them were sold off market, or 8% of the total number of sales.
Of the 21, only EIGHT were Compass listings. We’re not the only one!
Here is the crazy stat: Of the 21 off-market sales, TEN were sold to an outside brokerage!
It’s going to be rare when an agent takes a listing and just happens to have a buyer for it. Some of these double-enders are going to be the reverse – when an agent has a buyer and solicits sellers in the buyers’ desired area and gets lucky to find a deal. Most agents will input that sale as representing both parties even if they didn’t have a formal listing agreement with the seller – which is supposed to be required for MLS input (nobody checks them).
When representing a seller, I’m still not a fan of doing an off-market sale.
The only one we did was a year ago when the sellers agreed with me that this price may never happen again because it was based on another off-market pending sale of the same model (we closed first):
I wouldn’t want to be trying to sell for $2,175,000 in there today!
While there may be an occasional good reason to sell off-market, it’s not a big segment of the total sales. Reffkin said yesterday that 94% of Compass listings sell from open-market exposure via the MLS, and that will probably continue.
But it’s a sexy topic!
The NAR/MLS rules are the problem. In the near future, Compass and other brokerages will likely break away from NAR/MLS restrictions and use our website to expose our listings to the market – and/or we make a deal to share our listings with a national entity like homes.com.
by Jim the Realtor | Mar 3, 2025 | Compass, Pocket Listings
Robert Reffkin has heard enough and wants to address the rumors:
Many of you have heard things like “Compass is trying to sell listings off-market,” and “Compass is trying to double end deals.” These misconceptions are intentionally designed to create fear in the industry.
Fiction: Compass is hurting sellers by keeping listings from the MLS.
Fact: In 2024, 81% of Compass Coming Soons that sold off the MLS, sold at or above the final list price.
Fiction: Compass just wants to double-end more deals.
Fact: 94% of Compass listings that sold in 2024, sold on the MLS.
To set the record straight, we want agents at every brokerage to know We Co-Broke With Everyone. By setting up a saved search for Compass Coming Soons, any agent at any brokerage can instantly receive alerts when new Compass Coming Soon listings become available.
Go to compass.com and search for listings in Coming Soon, then save your search!
by Jim the Realtor | Feb 24, 2025 | About the author, Compass
Last year, Compass was #1 again in total volume and number of homes sold.
We have the most agents too – you can see why going it alone looks more and more feasible.
I’m not sure what I did to get a mention, but, man, Donna is going to wonder what happened!
by Jim the Realtor | Feb 23, 2025 | Compass, The Future
This is the type of name-calling I’m willing to endure:
IMHO, RE industry has descended right into the gutter alongside slimy used car salesmen. License to screw over consumers using information hiding and deceptive practices.
Elimination of pre-sale inspections and mandatory disclosures. Elimination of escrow via mandatory seller-arranged financing (complete with kickbacks). Refusal to allow buyer representation at all. “Sign on the line today, accepting all our slimy terms, or lose the property to the next sucker tomorrow!”
It gets worse – those from within the industry have been slamming Compass and Robert Reffkin for years. Zillow came out with their own study this week where they claim the sellers of off-MLS homes lost $1 billion in the last two years – which is an eye-popping headline! But in the fine print they do admit that they used their zestimate to make the analysis.
Our manager Steve responded on a realtor-news feed:
It caused Steve and Robert to talk by phone on Friday, and they discussed the path we are on. It is the one I’ve described where we end our relationship with NAR and the MLS companies and go it alone.
The commercial brokerages have always functioned this way and have only used Loopnet as a last resort. Nobody calls them names or threatens to sue them over their practices. It is inevitable that the same thing happens to residential brokerages, and Compass will just be the first national brand to do it.
It will make for a terrific recruiting tool as well. If you are an agent, we should chat!
by Jim the Realtor | Feb 21, 2025 | 2025, Commission Lawsuit, Compass, Jim's Take on the Market, Realtor, Realtors Talking Shop, The Future, Why You Should List With Jim |
The Compass CEO, Robert Reffkin, is a vocal opponent of the Clear Cooperation Policy. Those in the business call him names and say his only motivation for opposing the CCP is to promote in-house sales.
The point that gets trampled over is that consumers and agents should be free to choose how they want to market the properties for sale.
The CCP insists that listings go onto the MLS right away, and be subject to this nonsense:
They don’t name Zillow but obviously that’s the target.
As we saw yesterday, Zillow is not truthful. They don’t care about doing what’s best for sellers or agents. They only care about making money, and dominating the space.
Unfortunately, the NAR and others turned over the control of the marketing of our listings to Zillow, Homes.com, and Murdoch’s Realtor.com – which is the real disappointment! Realtors don’t own, and we don’t control realtor.com? What a travesty!
Compass is determined to take control of the marketing of our listings.
It starts with getting our listings onto the internet before the search portals. Having the consumers see our listings on our website, and thereby contacting the listing agents who know the most about the properties, is better for the consumer than being funneled to outside agents who are paying for leads:
I’ve been saying for a while that everything happening in residential real estate is heading towards single agency, and eliminating the buyer-agents. Homes.com is directing consumers to the listing agent, and spending millions on advertising to make a point of it.
We’re in the transition phase, and I’ll predict the future.
Compass will quit NAR and the MLS, and go it alone.
If you ask me, we’re already big enough to do it now. I have encouraged Robert to do it, but it’s too early.
But it’s coming.
We will still be happy to cooperate with outside agents – they will just have to find our listings on our website, instead of elsewhere. We’re just doing what Redfin did – make our website more popular with consumers.
What about the Private Exclusives, the title of this post?
They are allowed now, and because you only sell a house once, sellers and agents should have the choice to sell a home off-market. Here are good reasons to do so:
- The allure of an insider deal can cause a buyer to pay more – they are sexy deals.
- Buyers don’t have the benefit of open-market exposure to test the price.
- It keeps the bozo agents from screwing up deals.
We have it happening right now. Our sellers are in escrow with buyers who got squeamish this week. Their agent was NO help. He had no experience or ability to try to help them through their foibles which had little, or nothing, to do with buying the house. Donna and I both had to step in to save the day (another reason to hire us to sell your house!).
It is detrimental for escrows to blow out. Trying to ignite the same urgency as when a listing is fresh on the market is impossible. Every buyer thinks something is wrong, and rarely do a home sell for the same price or more the second time around.
Those are three good reasons for our sellers to go Private Exclusive. I still believe in open-market exposure being the best route but it’s because I’m old-school. The current market conditions are tough and inviting every joker to bid on my listings has consequences, and they’re not all good.
Reffkin and Compass will undoubtedly taking more heat for questioning the CCP in the coming months, but it’s a sideshow. There will be bigger changes down the road – promise.
by Jim the Realtor | Feb 3, 2025 | Compass, Realtor, Realtors Talking Shop, The Future
The Future of Real Estate Belongs to Compass
With a strong foundation built on agent expertise, innovative technology, and a customer-first approach, Compass is well-positioned to overtake Zillow as the most influential real estate platform. As Zillow continues to struggle with profitability and data limitations, Compass is thriving by embracing the reality that real estate is not just about listings—it’s about relationships and local market knowledge.
As Zillow continues to struggle with profitability—marking its twelfth straight year without earning a profit—Compass is poised for continued growth. Real estate is inherently a local business, and Reffkin’s strategy of leveraging a strong network of agents gives Compass a significant edge over data-driven platforms that lack a personal touch.
With Robert Reffkin at the helm, Compass is not just competing with Zillow; it is redefining the real estate experience and paving the way for a more efficient, agent-focused industry future.
As the industry continues to evolve, buyers and sellers will increasingly seek platforms that offer not just data, but also real, tangible support from experienced professionals. With its unique model, Compass is set to lead the future of real estate, leaving Zillow struggling to keep up.
Read the full article here:
https://www.openhausrealty.com/blog/why-compass-will-overtake-zillow-as-the-most-popular-real-estate-platform/
by Jim the Realtor | Dec 19, 2024 | Compass, Pocket Listings
I love that Robert Reffkin is becoming the industry spokesman – what he says is mostly accurate and informative. For the record, yesterday we had Natalie film my next video before I saw the boss talking about 2025 inventory:
