A usually sluggish summer season month for New York Metropolis’s residential actual property seems to be getting into a slog that’s partially by design.
Manhattan listings on StreetEasy fell 7 % week-over-week within the first week of August, greater than double its typical decline to open the month. From 2023 to 2025, solely 3 % of listings had been pulled from StreetEasy in the course of the first week of August.
By the second week in August, lively listings in Manhattan had fallen 11 % for the reason that begin of the month.
The drop in listings comes almost a month after CEO Robert Reffkin gathered top agents within the metropolis from Compass, Corcoran and Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty to advise them to briefly take away listings from StreetEasy starting in August.
The assembly, which served as a kickoff for what Compass has dubbed its “Fall Advertising and marketing Playbook,” pitted the residential large in opposition to New York Metropolis’s dominant listings energy amid a bigger battle between the brokerage and StreetEasy’s mother or father firm, Zillow, round who controls and monetizes listings.
StreetEasy criticized Compass’ suggestion for its brokers to de-list their purchasers’ houses this month.
“These are actual owners who listed their properties to get most publicity; as an alternative, their houses had been quietly pulled from the platform the place New York patrons search most, with none obvious profit to them,” a spokesperson mentioned in an emailed assertion. “Now lots of of sellers and brokers have much less visibility and lots of of patrons have fewer selections.”
The timing of Compass’ suggestion to brokers underneath its umbrella appears to coincide with when brokers would traditionally pull listings in the course of the well-liked trip interval to reset days on market.
Compass brokers in New York obtained emails on the finish of July suggesting brokers inform sellers that houses accruing days on market throughout a sluggish summer season month might be “value-destructive” and may “taint a property and generate fewer showings.”
The speaking factors mimic people who Reffkin has made publicly in his bid to overhaul Zillow as a listings vacation spot, positioning Compass and Compass.com as locations for brokers to share listings with out displaying days on market or worth drops.
Compass beforehand defended the shift as a “frequent advertising and marketing technique amongst prime brokers.”
“This advertising and marketing technique isn’t centered on pulling listings off any specific portal or web site — these listings are nonetheless seen to all brokers of all brokerages in REBNY’s RLS and their purchasers,” the spokesperson acknowledged. “Brokers have a fiduciary duty to suggest what’s finest to the vendor, to not the enterprise mannequin of a portal that makes use of the itemizing to promote promoting.”
Information compiled from itemizing administration system RealPlus by Olshan Realty’s Donna Olshan reveals that 18 % of Compass’ listings had been moved both briefly or completely off the market within the Actual Property Board of New York’s Residential Itemizing Service by Aug. 13.
That was greater than its opponents throughout the identical time interval, when Douglas Elliman moved 6 % of its listings off the market and Brown Harris Stevens moved 8 % of its listings off the market. Corcoran and Sotheby’s, which each had brokers invited to the technique periods on de-listing, took 8 % and 9 % of their listings off the market, respectively.
In a follow-up e-mail to brokers on July 27, Compass suggested brokers to first de-list from StreetEasy, then transfer their listings to off-market standing within the RLS and eventually, relist them as “Participant’s Solely,” a standing within the RLS that permits listings to be shared between brokers with entry to the RLS, however not on public platforms.
RealPlus, a software program supplier for New York Metropolis brokers, confirmed “an total uptick in Participant Solely listings,” in line with founder Eric Gordon, who declined to touch upon particular brokerages behind the rise.
Publish-acquisition energy
The deal has put Compass on equal footing with Zillow, lengthy thought-about an untouchable behemoth within the residential house.
Compass added virtually 90,000 owned-brokerage brokers and 280,000 franchise brokers that may contribute listings to Compass’ unique platform and web site. Within the second quarter, Compass reported income of over $4 billion throughout its manufacturers in comparison with Zillow’s $772 million and earlier this yr. Compass now has a market capitalization, a measure of an organization’s market worth, of almost $10 billion in comparison with Zillow’s market cap of almost $8 billion.
Compass’ outsize market share in cities like New York and its push to market its listings off of public platforms, even briefly, has raised antitrust issues on the native and federal degree. In June, TRD reported that the New York Legal professional Basic’s Workplace antitrust division was wanting into the residential giant’s footprint in New York Metropolis.
On Aug. 6, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Reffkin criticizing his push to develop Compass’ non-public itemizing community in Chicago, citing analysis exhibiting that sellers don’t obtain as a lot for his or her dwelling when it’s not listed on platforms.
“Whereas patrons stand to lose entry to listings, and sellers miss out on potential fairness underneath PLNs, brokerages stand to revenue,” Warren wrote. “[Private listing networks] allow itemizing brokerages to have interaction in a follow known as “dual-agency, “double-ending,” or “end-to-end” transactions, the place brokers from the identical brokerage agency signify each the client and vendor.”
The issues echoed these raised in letters despatched in July to Reffkin and Rebecca Jensen, CEO of Chicago-based MLS Midwest Actual Property Information, from a U.S. Home subcommittee centered on antitrust and regulatory points. Signed by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, the letters requested a briefing on the non-public itemizing partnership between Compass and MRED, citing worries over housing affordability and shopper entry to data.
Learn extra
“People will search where the inventory is”: Robert Reffkin lays out Compass’ portal ambitions
MLS en garde: Regional listing services eyeing congressional inquiry into Compass and MRED
StreetEasy to boot agents from specialty tools over private listings
