Why the Compass/Anywhere Closing Is Only the First Move
The Compass/Anywhere deal has closed wwwaaayyy earlier than expected. I suspect the attention that was starting to accumulate from the Zillow noise and lawsuits, the DOJ, and other lawmakers was alarming enough to light a fire under the Boards, ensuring this deal went off without government intervention. It closed months ahead of the ‘latter part of 2026’ projections. Kudos to them for pulling it off so quickly. I am sure it was no small feat.
So the deal was done as of Friday, January 9th. Now what? The arduous task of converting a very large, disjointed organization to the ‘Compass way’ begins. The challenge for Compass is that they are dealing with an organization that is partially company-owned and mostly (80%) franchised. Their primary goal with the franchisees will be to retain them, which means helping them retain their agents and giving them tools they didn’t already have to increase their business at no additional cost.
It has taken years for Anywhere and its previous iterations to effectively manage the various brands in a way that adds value to shareholders without collusion. There is a reason why they sold. It is hard enough to get independently-owned franchises to comply with and use programs and affiliated services, but then you add independent sales associates (even in the company-owned shops), and it’s like herding cats. Robert Reffkin has already said that focusing on other transactional services and the revenue that they bring is a key driver.
Singing out of the same song sheet.
I give Robert Reffkin, the Chairman and CEO of the newly named Compass International Holdings, credit. The first week after closing the deal, he is already on his road show, swinging through Southern California, visiting his new brands, offices, and top producers. It’s going to be a long travel year for him as the face of a company that hasn’t had a face in a very long time. People love to align with a person who embodies their company’s culture and mission, and he does just that. But it is also about convincing them that this deal is in their best interest.
I want you to understand the power of the Compass philosophy and culture, and how the private exclusive listings credo has already crept into the Anywhere mantra at the leadership level. Here is a pre-acquisition quote from a HousingWire article last April. Ryan Schneider, Anywhere’s President and CEO, said, “Anywhere Real Estate is aggressively advocating for transparent and public distribution of nearly all listings, because we believe it is best for buyers to see all the inventory, and most critically, it helps sellers get the highest price for their home, full stop.” Now, here is a quote from Ryan Schneider from an investor earnings call in September 2025, after the acquisition was announced: “If the world goes to private listings, we will not let our agents be disadvantaged — we have more listings to make into private listings than anybody does.”
As you can see, no mention of the sellers or buyers in that last quote. He had already drunk the Kool-Aid, even before it closed. But it is completely understandable, since he is personally receiving millions and millions of dollars from this deal.
Then I asked ChatGPT to scour the internet for quotes from Robert Reffkin about the acquisition (not about private listings). It came up with most of what I had already seen, but it also identified key themes in those acquisition quotes that I found quite telling. ChatGPT said:
Empowerment of agents — framing the deal around agent choice, tools, and entrepreneurial potential.
Freedom and independence — rejecting mandates and asserting that agents can choose listing strategies.
Tech integration — presenting the acquisition as a foundation for a unified technology platform.
Industry impact — positioning the combination as historic and human-centered rather than just transactional.
Do you see what is missing above? No mention of clients or employees, reinforcing the agent-centric model he has created at Compass. You may think the last bullet implies that, but I am pretty sure it is referring to the effect on the agents.
And so it begins.
The agent-centricity was further reinforced when, three days after the closing, an announcement was made at a town hall meeting. All employees located in New Jersey and New York who live 50 miles or an hour commute from either the Compass Manhattan or Anywhere, Madison, NJ corporate offices will need to return to the office full-time within four months, or they will be out. So if they were hired with the understanding that they had a remote job, that just changed. I understand that other announcements were made that will also negatively affect some employees.
There was also mention that this will eventually happen nationwide for employees within striking distance of an Anywhere or Compass hub office (this will not apply to franchise offices, and Cartus is said to be excluded from this mandate). I’m not exactly sure what designates a hub office, but I guess a company-owned residential branch office could possibly meet that criteria. Hypothetically, a work-from-home employee might find themselves commuting an hour to sit in a cube in a residential real estate branch office. Great for morale.
Just my opinion.
This back-to-work initiative has absolutely nothing to do with bringing people back into the office for collaboration, culture building, or whatever bogus reasons CEOs use to mandate back-to-office events. What it typically indicates is a lack of trust and a disregard for work-life balance. In this case, I believe it's 100% about thinning the herd. Letting people self-select to leave even though they were told they could work remotely, and successfully exhibited that they could. And it keeps Compass from having to pay severance. It is purely a cost-cutting measure. But you can be sure, they will make allowances for those they really want to keep in some form or fashion, particularly if they are agent-facing.
What this will do is put a lot of great people on the market, or push some into retirement. If you are in a hiring mode, hang tight, good people are about to be looking for a change.
But the bigger issue is…
The future of how real estate is practiced has fundamentally changed overnight. NAR and MLS may now be irrelevant, given that one brokerage dominates up to 60% of some markets. The Compass goal has been to control the inventory to its benefit. By promoting their listings privately, they exclude other brokers and consumers from accessing that information. They do it under the guise of consumer choice. But it is a blatant exercise in controlling inventory to sell in-house to their customer base.
Compass has effectively convinced many sellers that private listings benefit them, even though MLS statistics show that homes exposed to the open market sell for about 17.5% higher. I’ve said it before: unless you are very famous or wealthy and concerned about privacy, why wouldn't you want to expose your property to every potential buyer? It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. They use the rallying cry that it gives consumers a choice, but today, any listing customer can opt to keep their property from being publicly exposed under NAR guidelines, but it still needs to go in the MLS.
Their big win.
If they control the bulk of the inventory and it is not accessible on the MLS or national portals for all to see, they effectively control consumer traffic. That is why Zillow is throwing big bucks into lawsuits to fight them. Buyers will want to work with them in hopes of seeing those listings before they hit the open market. More listings and buyers, more sales in-house by their own agents, which means keeping the money in the family, and first exposure to their own clients while excluding those who aren’t Compass family clients.
A new bill introduced by lawmakers in Washington state has the government looking into this and how the lack of transparency affects consumers. It has finally drawn the attention of some lawmakers who are wisely questioning whether it is really about consumer choice. Eliminating who can see a listing may also fall under discriminatory and exclusionary practices. Read more on it in Inman: Washington legislation
They are already touting the importance of controlling the bulk of the listing inventory and how lumping in all related services is a key initiative for growth and control. But many brokers have tried and failed to get their agents to use and recommend their ‘preferred’ services. We will see if they can finally crack that code.
What about everyone else?
Where does this leave all of the non-Compass-related brokers? They will be fine. They need to focus on what makes them unique. Local expertise and decisions made at a micro level, not based on a high-level view of an international brokerage obliged to shareholders. Each market has its own personality, and localized brokerages help define that. Capitalize on it. My advice: ensure every client knows what Compass International Holdings actually owns.
But be aware, they are in agent retention mode, so I suspect the checkbooks will come out again. They don’t particularly need to recruit right now; it is all about retention. So it may be a good time for local boutiques to polish their recruiting messages. There are surely some agents who will feel lost in the shuffle and unwilling to continue competing among themselves in an even larger agent population.
The Anywhere agents are accustomed to competing across brands, but adding the Compass and @Properties agents into the mix introduces a new level of competition. Anywhere brands are somewhat segregated to focus on various echelons of clientele. This may vary by market and whether it is company-owned or a franchise. Sotheby’s and Corcoran primarily focus on the luxury sector. Coldwell Banker Realty is mid-level in some markets and is very high-end in others. Same with Century 21, ERA, and BH&G to a certain extent.
If they succeed in converting @Properties and the Anywhere brands to comply with their private listings quest, other brokers need to be prepared to sell against their narrative.
So how might this affect relocation?
Well, that depends. If Compass succeeds in making private listings the norm, it will limit listing exposure to a wider audience and punish brokers outside its family. When a transferee has a home to sell, they have a limited time to achieve that; they aren’t testing the market. So think about the value they will lose of broad exposure to the widest possible audience. Now I will say, it is up to the transferee if they want their listing to be private. Compass can’t control the transferees or their agents, for that matter, to force the issue. So make sure the transferee is counseled to understand what a private listing really means, or actually add it to the benefits policy, or issue a directive to the RMCs.
When a transferee is looking for a home, they have a limited number of househunting trips. If they work with a Compass family agent, they may see things that haven't yet been widely shared with the overall consumer and agent population. That could be a benefit for the transferee. So there are pros and cons.
The other big question remains - what is to become of Cartus? They separated the Anywhere Leads Group (b-to-b, affinity, and online leads) from Cartus a while ago. I am sure there will be a deep dive as to whether to invest in Cartus, sell it, or shut it down. With the agent-centric culture, I suspect one of the latter. Robert has readily admitted that he doesn’t really understand relocation. Cartus doesn’t do enough business to have a meaningful impact if those opportunities are spread around to include the Compass agents. And if you take those referrals away from the franchises to appease Compass agents, you risk those franchisee relationships. They could instead sell Cartus and possibly work out a deal under which the business continues to go to the Anywhere franchises for a period of time.
So I still have more questions than answers.
What will be the employee fallout from this merger?
Will Compass underestimate the importance of the support staff that keep things moving?
Will Compass truly be able to streamline and consolidate the real estate process?
Will their goal of controlling the bulk of the listing inventory and how it is promoted go unchallenged in a meaningful way?
Will the franchisees see sufficient value in the acquisition to remain with the brand?
How hard will they push the private listings initiative with the franchisees and their agents?
How will this behemoth affect the local boutique brokers who must compete with it?
Will the acquisition benefit (or hurt) the consumer in the short term and the long term?
And more important industry-related questions:
How will this affect relocation and mobility overall?
Who will oversee this massive relocation operation, including the local company-owned relocation departments?
What happens to Cartus?
Should corporations add a clause about private exclusive listings to their relocation benefits policies?
These questions will be answered over time, and like the closing, they may come faster than we expect. Stay tuned. As always, these are just my opinions and observations. Take them or leave them.
“The MLS and Zillow systems harm home sellers, who are robbed of the disinterested advice of their fiduciary real estate agent, and instead are steered towards MLSs and Zillow’s limited and often uncompetitive home listing marketing products which display days on market & public price drops.” ~Robert Reffkin, Chairman and CEO, Compass International Holdings, via a LinkedIn post.
