As Compass prepares to fight for rules that favor its private listing strategy, it set out to understand where hundreds of MLSs stand and create a ranking system from 1 to 5.
How do brokerages looking to carve their own path navigate a dense web of hundreds of multiple listing services across the country?
If you’re the largest real estate brokerage in the country, you’ll look at their regulations and rank them all on a five-star scale.
At least that’s what Compass is doing to rewrite the way real estate listings are sold in the United States, according to some of the thousands of documents filed in court as part of Compass’ lawsuit against Zillow last summer.
As Compass prepares to expand its three-phase marketing strategy to include two non-MLS phases, we worked internally to gain a clear understanding of the rules that MLSs large and small have implemented and that may intersect with this plan.
According to our rankings, the most restrictive MLS is Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Perhaps that’s not surprising. Compass and Seattle-based NWMLS have been in a battle for the past year. At some point, NWMLS terminated Compass’ license to the IDX feed. Compass responded by suing the multiple listing service, accusing it of acting as a “monopolist” in the market.
“It is not surprising that NWMLS received the most restrictive score, as NWMLS has consistently championed controls and strict, uniform mandates over homeowner choice and the judgment of real estate professionals,” a Compass spokesperson said in a statement to Inman.
NWMLS declined to comment for this story.
This ranking reflects the situation as of January 2025. The National Association of Realtors was preparing to announce a clear cooperative policy change that would require listings to be posted to the MLS within one day.
Compass advocated the complete abolition of this policy. NAR ultimately kept it, while also adding a delayed marketing option that industry observers considered a win for Compass and its CEO, Robert Reffkin.
“This appears to have gone Levkin’s way,” eXp Realty CEO Leo Pareja wrote to colleagues the day the NAR news was announced. The comment was made in a text message included in court documents.
It’s unclear what would happen if this listing were created today, since the NAR gave the MLS the authority to create its own timeline for agents to sell properties outside of the MLS before the property joins the MLS.
Ranking
This ranking shows that many large MLSs have implemented policies that Compass deems to be friendly to their cause.
A rank of 1 on the scale indicates that the MLS does not enforce a clear cooperation policy. 5, on the other hand, was considered “hostile” and had “stricter rules than the CCP, no exclusive office” and no public pre-marketing of the listing.
A 3 on the scale means the MLS allows Compass Coming Soon listings to sell in one business day.
Five MLSs were deemed to have policies that Compass deemed the most friendly at the time: Realtracs, MLS Property Information Network, Garden State MLS, New Jersey MLS, and Bay Area Real Estate Information Services.
Some of the nation’s largest multiple listing services, including Bright MLS, Houston Association of Realtors and Chicago’s MRED, ranked two out of five, according to the list.
Separate from the MLS rankings, a separate analysis, also produced by Compass and disclosed in documents, showed that nearly 20 MLSs had policies in place that the brokerage determined were not compliant with Zillow’s updated listing access standards.
Compass believed that any MLS with a policy that allows Compass Coming Soon listings to be sold outside the MLS for more than one day violates Zillow’s rules. And indeed, Zillow and Chicago’s MRED MLS have been at loggerheads over the company’s longstanding private listing network of multiple listing services.
In a message to subscribers in December, MRED said it had learned that Zillow was reaching out directly to subscribers in the area and said it expected “disruption in listings flowing to Zillow via MRED” starting the first week of January, but it is unclear whether that actually happened.
Neither Zillow nor MRED responded to requests for comment.
“MLS is not a regulatory agency and should not impose fines or disallow agents who fulfill their fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their customers,” a Compass spokesperson said. “Compass is focused on homeowner choice, giving sellers the flexibility to decide when and where to sell their home.”
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