When then-Compass chief financial officer Kalani Lieritz told investors in October 2024 that the company would achieve 30 percent market share in the top 30 markets “by the end of 2026,” that wasn’t a boast. It was the deadline.
Eighteen months later, new data from the Consumer Policy Center (CPC) shows Compass has already met that goal, and in some cities, far exceeded it.
The CPC report is based on 5,000 recent home sales in five major markets and found that Compass controls between 30 percent and 39.5 percent of sales in Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, San Diego and Austin. In four of these five cities, its share is at least four times that of the next largest brokerage. Compass’s intentional focus on luxury and high-priced properties skews the value upward, making its advantage even greater on a value basis.
The extent of its dominance becomes even clearer when viewed in context. Compass and Anywhere’s combined sales in 2025 exceeded the combined sales of the next three largest companies, Keller Williams, REMAX and HomeServices of America, according to new data from industry consulting firm T3 Sixty.
What the numbers don’t fully capture is how intentionally and methodically Compass got there. Below is a comprehensive look back at how Compass executed the biggest power grab in residential real estate history.
The goals they stopped talking about
Compass International Holdings CEO Robert Refkin updated investors on what he called the “30/30 Vision” during the company’s Q3 2024 earnings call, setting a clear goal of 30% market share in the company’s top 30 cities. “Our 30/30 vision to achieve an average market share of 30 percent in the top 30 cities will strengthen this advantage by expanding our listings in more markets where we have the largest presence and enabling double-digit growth in total trading volume,” Levkin told investors.
His CFO went further on the same call, telling analysts that the company is “probably halfway there,” with “several markets” reaching or exceeding that threshold and “many markets in that high-teen territory.” Lieritz said this goal could be achieved “in 2026 and beyond.”
“We’re not talking about that topic at this time.”
— Robert Refkin, Q3 2025 Earnings Call, when asked about the 30/30 strategy.
Mr. Lieritz, who had set that deadline so clearly, is unlikely to see it any time soon. He will step down from Compass in the summer of 2025 and be replaced by Scott Wahlers, the company’s longtime chief accounting officer. At the time of the Q3 2025 earnings call (the first since Compass announced plans to acquire Anywhere), the CFOs were different and the answers were different.
When asked by a Wall Street analyst for an update on the 30/30 strategy, Levkin said, “We’re not talking about that topic at this time.”
When a second analyst asked about adopting a private listing program, the answer was similarly succinct. “We’re not going to get into that topic, just considering where the situation is.”
Compass declined multiple inquiries from Inman seeking clarification about the 30/30 vision market.
A December 2025 analysis by the Capitol Forum, based on data from RealTrends Verified, found that the Compass-Anywhere merger would result in market share concentrations in at least 12 states that “far exceed the presumptive illegality threshold” under the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission’s 2023 Merger Guidelines, which treat market shares in excess of 30 percent as presumptive illegal.
The combined company could exceed a majority market share in several major cities, including Denver, Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, New York, and could exceed 80% in both Manhattan and Newport Beach, California, according to the analysis. The researchers say the analysis relies on voluntary data submissions and may underrepresent smaller players, but the direction the analysis paints is consistent with CPC’s deal-level findings.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden sent a letter to the Justice Department warning that the antitrust implications would be “significant.” When the deal was announced, Compass said it expected it to close in the second half of 2026, but the deal ultimately closed in January after a review by the Department of Justice.
how they got there
The market share that Compass currently commands didn’t happen overnight. It was the product of a strategic acquisition plan, a private listing program, and, when necessary, legal wrangling.
On the acquisition front, Compass acted quickly and carefully.
In 2024, the company announced plans to acquire @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, Chicago’s No. 1 brokerage by sales, in a deal valued at approximately $444 million, along with regional Gulf Coast firm Rutter & Bloom and Tennessee-based Parks Real Estate.
In 2025, the company acquired Washington Fine Properties (Washington Fine Properties). Washington Fine Properties is a luxury firm with 150 agents in the D.C. market, where it already held a 22 percent share. Porchlight Real Estate Group and Cottingham Chalk, a 70-agent Charlotte, N.C., company with $589 million in 2024 sales, in July, and Colorado’s Colorado Home Realty in September.
And later that month, Compass announced a $1.6 billion deal with Anywhere Real Estate, the parent company of Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s, ERA, Corcoran, and Better Homes and Gardens. Compass said in its announcement that the combined company will be the world’s largest residential real estate brokerage representing approximately 340,000 real estate professionals across approximately 120 countries and territories.
Meanwhile, in November 2024, Compass officially launched a three-stage marketing strategy. This will take sellers from the private exclusivity stage, through the upcoming pre-marketing period, and finally to the MLS. By February 2025, the Compass One Client Portal built that funnel directly into every seller conversation. Two months later, the company had about 10,000 private, exclusive listings across the U.S., said Rory Gorod, Compass’ regional president at the time and now president of growth.
The creation of industry-specific rules was also progressing in the direction of the compass. In March 2025, NAR updated its policy and introduced the “Delayed Marketing Exempt Listing” category in parallel with Clear Collaboration, formally allowing brokers to withhold properties from public IDX feeds before they are widely distributed.
Where MLS rules got in the way, Compass pushed through. In March 2025, Mr. Levkin coordinated a private exclusive blitz in the Seattle area, instructing agents to place pre-market listings despite Northwest MLS regulations, and promising to cover any resulting fines. Compass continued when NWMLS gave the agent a week’s “amnesty” and offered to resign.
The company filed an antitrust lawsuit against NWMLS in April. In June, the company sued Zillow over its move to restrict certain Compass private listings from its platform. Compass withdrew its Zillow lawsuit in mid-March 2026 after Zillow further relaxed its listing rules.
The data in the CPC report suggests that the private listing strategy is working as designed. In Washington, D.C., where Compass holds 39.5% of sales, the company’s double-end rate (deals in which both the listing agent and buyer agent belong to the same brokerage) exceeded 41%. Steven Brobeck, senior fellow at the Consumer Policy Center and author of the report, said in the study that when he looked at double-end rates in cities about a decade ago, the typical range was 3 to 12 percent. Compass has previously stated that it does not track or encourage double endings.
Build your team for next time
As Compass established itself in the market, it also put in place the people to do so.
In July 2025, Compass hired Mike Simonsen as the company’s first chief economist. Mike Simonsen is a decades-long industry veteran and founder of Altos Research, a company that has built a real-time MLS data tool that tracks market prices and markdown days. His weekly market update video series, formerly published under the HousingWire banner, now operates under the Compass brand.
Two months later, Compass hired Ethan Glass as chief legal officer. Mr. Glass spent years at the Department of Justice leading teams that investigated and litigated MLS organizations for anti-competitive practices before becoming NAR’s lead antitrust attorney. Barnett Commission Case. Mr. Glass was already working on the NWMLS case with Compass before joining the firm full-time, and his appointment came in the same month that the Anywhere deal was announced.
In February 2026, as the Anywhere integration began, Levkin promoted Neda Navab to president of Compass International Holdings. Mr. Navab has been with Compass since 2018, starting as Mr. Levkin’s chief of staff and then being promoted to president of the Eastern region. Her mission now is to unify the combined company’s culture across all 340,000 agents and all brands. “Big is what drives us, but boutique is our strength,” she told Inman in March.
Also in March, Compass appointed Sue Yanacone, former president and CEO of Anywhere Brands, as the combined company’s first chief operating officer. During her time at Anywhere, she was an outspoken critic of the push for private listings, warning in a 2025 op-ed that certain brokerages were “simply trying to centralize listings for the express purpose of benefiting their own businesses at the expense of an already struggling consumer base.” She currently serves as COO of a company that operates the industry’s largest private listing program.
Earlier this month, the company promoted Mr. Gorod to president of growth for parent company Compass International Holdings. Mr. Gorod has expanded his role and now oversees agent recruitment, platform implementation, M&A, and corporate communications across all 340,000 agents across the brands in the Compass portfolio. In February 2025, Gorod told Real Estate News, “If we’re not working with Compass, we’re missing out on the market.” He now has the responsibility of making that happen on a scale that seemed unbelievable two years ago.
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What it means for consumers
An April report released by the Consumer Federation of America and the National League of Cities was based on a survey of 223 HUD-certified housing counselors in 37 states and found that nearly half said their clients sometimes, often, or always have trouble finding housing because of unlisted listings.
The report also raised concerns about fair housing issues, noting that private properties have historically been associated with racism and segregation, and warning that their increase could reintroduce the barriers that the MLS system was built to alleviate.
As Anywhere becomes more integrated and private listing programs spread across brands that consumers still associate with them as independent, such as Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Sotheby’s, the combined company’s overall double-end rate could rise, Brobeck suggests.
“Compass has become so dominant in some local markets that consumers will feel both pressure and attraction to list and purchase properties through Compass agents.”
— Stephen Brobeck, Consumer Policy Center, April 2026
Compass claims its private property strategy benefits sellers, citing internal research that shows marketed homes sell for an average of 2.9% more than homes offered directly to the MLS. Critics, including Zillow and Bright MLS, dispute this finding.
In any case, the giant securities companies are still making moves. On April 24, the company announced a partnership with MRED, a Chicagoland MLS with more than 48,000 subscribers, to develop a nationwide private listing network. Compass has committed to providing its entire inventory of private exclusive and upcoming products to MRED’s Private Listing Network and announced that it will subsidize membership fees for up to 100,000 agents.
MRED has committed to protecting participating agents from penalties from third-party portals. This partnership effectively provides Compass with national MLS infrastructure for its private listing strategy.
Where that will lead remains to be seen. But there is no doubt about the brokerage’s expansion arc. Compass’ CFO said in October 2024 that the company will reach 30% market share in 30 markets by the end of 2026. New data suggests it’s already gaining share in some cities, and then some. For buyers and sellers navigating that market, the question is no longer whether Compass dominates, but what that dominance means.
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