BrightMLS, one of the nation’s largest multiple listing services, announced Wednesday that it will expand its service nationwide as other MLSs grow.
MRED, an MLS that has historically served Chicagoland, and Nashville’s RealTrax were the first two to announce they would accept subscribers from anywhere in the United States. As is the case with these multiple listing services, BrightMLS has entered into a partnership with Compass, BrightMLS CEO Brian Donnellan wrote in Wednesday’s Real Estate News.
brian donnellan
“Compass has committed to making national data available to subscribers through our system,” Donnellan wrote. “Furthermore, Compass has agreed to subsidize new Bright subscriptions to enable Compass International Holdings’ distributors in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or other parts of the country to take advantage of Bright’s capabilities throughout the region.”
In his op-ed, Donnellan also said MLS would change its rules to give it more flexibility in how listings are displayed.
MRED and Realtracks also changed their rules as part of their expansion plans, potentially threatening Zillow’s access to listing on those markets. And the growing trend among MLSs comes amid an ongoing battle between Zillow, the nation’s largest real estate search portal, and Compass, the largest brokerage, over when, where and how properties are sold.
The battle intensified this week when Zillow sued Compass and MRED in federal court, alleging a conspiracy to threaten access to the portal’s listings if the portal enforced its pre-sale listing policy.
In Bright’s case, the ruleset was updated on Sunday, but the MLS did not respond to Inman’s questions about what specific changes were made and how they would apply to Zillow, other portals, and even listing agents.
Instead, a BrightMLS spokesperson said in a statement, “We recently clarified our IDX rules to ensure that listings are not excluded based on who listed the property. No changes have been made to the definition of objective criteria.”
“The MLS’s job is to give brokers room to compete on strategy, not to force everyone into a single strategy or to build workarounds outside of the MLS,” Donnellan wrote. “Brokers and sellers need a marketplace where their listings are filled out on time, completely and accurately, and distributed exactly how they want without anything unauthorized being added.”
Compass CEO Robert Refkin has previously criticized “negative insights,” such as length of listing and price history, that he believes will hurt a listing.
Donnellan wrote that Bright is committed to enforcing flexible rules that include “fines and suspensions for those who break the rules.”
“Selective entry into MLS is just as harmful as selective display to the general public, and we treat both with the same seriousness. What matters is equality,” he wrote. “Our rules are written to support a consistent and transparent market and apply in the same way to all participants in that market – large brokerages and small, national franchises and independents, platforms and portals.”
Bright’s updated rules limit the portal’s ability to block listings based on broker, agent, or intermediary. If a listing is restricted, the portal must include a disclosure indicating that the listing is excluded from display, according to regulations.
The partnership with Compass follows previous statements by the brokerage and Refkin regarding Bright.
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On stage at Inman Connect New York earlier this year, Mr. Refkin floated the idea of a national MLS and specifically named Mr. Donnellan as a CEO candidate.
Will more MLSs partner with Compass?
There are signs that more MLS could follow suit this spring.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Zillow alleges that Compass encouraged major MLSs to expand in size and partner with mega-brokers.
Zillow also claimed that Compass’ director of industry relations, Caitlin McCrory, sent an email to HiveMLS’s CEO on Monday asking him to stop the growth of non-MLS listing databases, including Zillow and its Zillow Preview listings.
Zillow announced on May 5th a partnership to share pre-market listings with Realtor.com starting this summer. The email suggests that such a partnership violates MLS rules because it would create a database outside the MLS and share listings outside the MLS.
If Compass begins enforcing this policy by May 20, Compass will no longer have listings added to third-party portals other than MLS within Hive’s territory in the southeastern United States, the email said.
HiveMLS did not respond to emails or requests for comment from Compass about the offer or whether it plans to partner with the large brokerage firm.
Threats to listing feeds
The alleged partnership proposal follows Mr. Refkin’s alleged push to have more MLSs enforce rules against Zillow.
Zillow said in the lawsuit that Levkin emailed at least eight MLSs in October 2025, urging them to suspend Zillow’s data feeds, citing the portal’s listing access standards.
If such a move were taken, Zillow would lose access to public companies, its lifeblood.
Compass notified Zillow last week that it ended its direct listing feed with Zillow for all of its brokerages on May 8th. However, Zillow still maintains a direct listing feed with the MLS and no listings will be lost from the portal as a result of its termination.
Direct broker listing feeds are considered a backup to MLS listing feeds, but the MLS’ national reach and rule updates pose new threats to that listing source.
But MRED’s technology provider, MLS Grid, notified Zillow earlier this month that the portal had blocked listings in Florida, Georgia and California in violation of MLS’ updated rules. MLS Grid has given Zillow until May 19th to comply.
As part of its lawsuit, Zillow asked the court to stop MRED from enforcing the new rules and prevent MRED from cutting off access to its Chicagoland properties.
Zillow claims its listing access standards are pro-consumer.
“Defendants conspired to threaten to cut off Zillow and other competitors’ access to all listings, an input critical to industry competition, and to force competitors to abandon their transparency policies,” Zillow’s complaint states.
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