Case 1:26-cv-09253 Complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief.
“This lawsuit arises from a campaign by Compass- the largest real estate brokerage in the United States to pressure multiple listing services (“MISs”) into changing cooperation rules in a way that would favor Compass but would make the market for residential real estate less transparent and less competitive, ultimately hurting”
Holy Shit, its on.
From HousingWire:
Compass takes CRMLS fight to court and promises to cover agent fines
I’ve been delaying writing about this, too much reading. As you know, two weeks ago CRMLS beat Compass to the courthouse and filed in Manhattan. I told any MLS holding one of Compass’s demand letters to wait and see what that judge had to say before signing anything. On Friday Compass went and found a second judge. It filed its own antitrust suit in Riverside. Same fight, two federal courts, and both sides went shopping in the other guy’s hometown. CRMLS sued in Compass’s. Compass walked past its own federal courthouse in Manhattan and flew 2,500 miles to sue in the division CRMLS sits in, which tells you how badly it wants out of the district that told it no on Zillow in February.
From the complaint:
“Only the law and the homeowner should tell agents how to market a home, and CRMLS is neither the law nor the homeowner.”
Good line. Then read the rest of Friday’s announcement, where Compass adds itself to that list.
Compass will cover the fine for any agent at Compass, Coldwell Banker Realty or Sotheby’s International Realty, as long as the client asked for the public marketing in writing. Two conditions. Send the fine notice to a Compass email address, and assign Compass your right to sue CRMLS over it. Compass then folds your claim into its own case.
Call that what it is. Compass is buying plaintiffs, one fine notice at a time.
Remember the arithmetic. CRMLS says it issued 89 Rule 7.9 fines in 2025, eight of them to a Compass agent, and the fine tops out at $2,500. Call it twenty grand. Now, I’m even less of an attorney than Mrs. Zachria but as I read the complaint is asks for those back as restitution, buried in the prayer for relief. Paragraph 8 is where the real number lives, and the theory is this (and it’s a doozie). Compass couldn’t market a home publicly without putting it in the MLS, so it had no choice but to follow MLS policy, and MLS policy is what got brokerages sued over commissions.
Compass paid over $175 million to defend and settle lawsuits resulting from MLS policies it could not avoid… Although the settlements were the result of MLS rules, CRMLS paid nothing.
Compass wants an MLS to pay for the commission settlements. And in the complaint’s own words, the harms “must be paid back in triplicate.”
My head hurts.
It’s worth checking the word paid. Compass settled Gibson for $57.5 million. Getting anywhere near $175 million takes Anywhere’s $83.5 million settlement, and in Compass’s most recent quarterly filing, $54 million of that was still unpaid. Another $30 million of it was paid by Anywhere back in 2024, before Compass owned the company.
Nicole Aguilar at CRMLS sent over Art Carter’s full statement. Here’s the part that didn’t make the coverage:
“…no brokerage gains an unfair advantage by benefiting from the cooperative while withholding its own publicly marketed listings.”
The word for that is freeriding, and Art didn’t pick it at random. It’s the word the Manhattan judge used in February when he denied Compass’s injunction against Zillow, and CRMLS quotes that ruling three times in its own complaint.
Ten Compass enforcement cases were still open at CRMLS when it filed, eight of them on appeal. Those eight are the ballgame now, because an agent appealing a $2,500 fine wants it to go away. Compass’s lawyers want a transcript.
Compass also promised, on the record, to sue Unlock MLS. Twelve days ago. Maybe CRMLS is the test case and the rest of you are the docket.
So if you got one of those letters, here’s your homework this week. Find out what your enforcement process is worth once the defendant pre-pays the fine and owns the appeal. And I’d still wait before signing anything. Just know that waiting now means two judges instead of one, and every citation you write in the meantime is evidence somebody can buy.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Katherine Clarke for the Wall Street Journal (pay wall)
The Fierce Battle to Control How Americans Buy and Sell Their Homes
Velvet ropes around a house? What a travesty. This is exactly what Brian Boero warned us about at the CMLS Conference in Seattle. The article is not a good look for Compass, but even a worse look for the industry. Just check out the comments, and I thought this quote was emblematic of Compass double talk…
“Compass’s spokesperson said those figures are incorrect, but said the company doesn’t keep track of the numbers itself.”
How long will the industry tolerate one person, one company gatekeeping the American Dream?
CRMLS Seeks Declaratory Judgment, Files Complaint Against Compass, Inc.
Compass gave CRMLS until 5 PM Eastern on October 6 to stop fining agents for publicly marketing office exclusives, or get sued. CRMLS filed a day early. As the plaintiff. In Manhattan, Compass’s backyard.
It’s a declaratory judgment action. CRMLS is asking a federal judge to rule that its cooperation rules are legal under the Sherman Act and California’s Cartwright Act, and to bar Compass from bringing the case Reffkin promised from the CMLS stage last week. The complaint even counts the crowd: “a packed room of over 900 attendees.”
The press release (see below for link) is all defense fund. The good stuff is buried in paragraph 59 in the complaint (link also below):
“In 2025, CRMLS issued 89 fines for violation of Rule 7.9, with only 8 of those going to a Compass agent. For context, CRMLS had over 271,000 listings enter the system in 2025.“
Eight. Compass’s own demand letter says the fine tops out at $2,500. So Compass promised to “spend millions of dollars” over roughly twenty grand 🤔. (The 2026 count is higher, about 75 Compass cases out of 300, with reports climbing “since the spring.” Funny how that lines up with the office exclusive push.) Bottom line, the fines are the excuse. The rule is the target.
The exhibits are where it gets fun. In November 2024, Reffkin wrote the CRMLS board asking for a status with no days on market and no price history, and said his ideas “support the concept of mandatory submission to the MLS, but not mandatory marketing through the MLS.” CRMLS built its Limited Exposure Coming Soon status this summer. A couple of months later, the demand letter showed up. Talk about moving goalposts.
Then there’s my favorite paragraph. CRMLS quotes Anywhere’s 2024 10-K warning that changes to cooperation rules “could, among other things, reduce the availability of broadly listed properties, leading to more unlisted inventory.” Anywhere is now owned by Compass. Hard to argue with yourself.
The venue is smart too. The same Southern District of New York denied Compass’s injunction against Zillow in February, saying these practices could “encourage freeriding; fragment the real estate market; and limit transparency.” Compass dropped that case. CRMLS quotes it three times.
I’ve said the real question for every MLS is whether it’s a broker cooperative or a listing platform. CRMLS just answered in federal court, and paid to go first. Every MLS that got a letter now has two options: sign Compass’s release this week, or wait and see what a judge in Manhattan says about the rule.
I’d wait.
Press Release: CRMLS Seeks Declaratory Judgment, Files Complaint Against Compass, Inc.
Complaint: 2026-10-05_Complaint with Exhibits
“I introduced her to my loved one, and while they were dancing, my friend stole my sweetheart from me.”
The Tennessee Waltz is the saddest song ever written about handing something precious to a friend. It’s also a pretty good history of this industry and Zillow. We introduced our listings to a friendly portal, the music played, and you know how the song ends.
Which is why it matters that Tennessee, of all places, just rewrote the ending.
Realtracs and Zillow Enter New Licensing Agreement
“Zillow will notify Realtracs at the same time an agent receives a notification that they have reached the threshold for listing suppression under Zillow’s Listing Access Standards. This provides greater transparency into those situations and gives Realtracs the information needed to work directly with brokers and agents to ensure healthy cooperation.”
So the Nashville standoff ends with a signature. Realtracs called out Zillow’s Listing Access Standards back in May, set a deadline, extended it twice, and after ten weeks of negotiating we get a “modernized license agreement.” Compare that to Chicago, where MRED pulled the feed, a federal judge ordered it turned back on, and the lawyers are still billing. Realtracs walks away with a contract. MRED walks away with a court date.
Both sides get to declare “victory” here. Zillow told Real Estate News its Listing Access Standards “remain in full effect across the Nashville region” and were “not modified as part of this agreement.” Stuart White gets defined use rights, AI and LLM guardrails on broker-created content, better listing activity reporting, and my favorite part, the pull quote above. Until now Zillow could bench an agent’s listings and the MLS would find out from an angry phone call. Now Realtracs gets the notification the moment the agent does.
But the real story is the paper itself. Back in April, Realtracs tore up its Participation Agreement and put “the broker owns the listing” in writing. This looks like chapter two of the same strategy: stand up a Data Licensing Platform, Homes.com was the first, now Zillow. The line at the bottom of the press release, “as additional technology providers renew their agreements,” is doing a lot of work. Every vendor pulling a Realtracs feed should expect the same paperwork.
Saul Klein wrote last month that the real AI question is “who controls the terms under which AI gains access to listing data.” Realtracs just gave its answer: we do, and here’s the license.
Will AI guardrails in a license agreement actually stop a foundation model from ingesting listings? Probably about as well as robots.txt did. But enforcement starts with terms, and you can’t enforce terms you never wrote down. In the post-settlement world the license agreement is the new rulebook.
Realtracs is still dancing with Zillow. It’s just done lending out its sweetheart without a word in writing.
Robert Reffkin and Rebecca Jensen you got mail! The House Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee sent both CEOs letters asking for briefings on the Compass/MRED partnership, “as soon as possible” and no later than August 5. The concern, straight from the letters, is that the deal:
Judiciary subcommittee summons Compass, MRED CEOs for briefing
“could limit competition by fragmenting inventory, weakening price competition, and creating “velvet ropes” around certain properties that limit access to a select group of potential buyers, potentially limiting consumer choice”
“Velvet ropes.” On congressional letterhead. That phrasing sounds familar, and apparently Washington has been taking notes.
Now walk with me…. The Consumer Federation of America asks the DOJ and FTC to review Compass’s MLS agreements. Senators Warren and Wyden want scrutiny of the Anywhere deal. The New York AG opens an antitrust inquiry. Zillow drags everybody into federal court in Chicago. And now a House Judiciary subcommittee wants both CEOs in the room within two weeks. Here’s the part that should get Compass’s attention: this subcommittee is chaired by Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican from Wisconsin. Warren and Wyden are one thing. When the letters start coming from both sides of the aisle, “this is just politics” stops working as a talking point.
MRED’s response: “Whether it’s our customers or this committee, we’re always happy to help.” Never change, Rebecca.
Compass? Nothing yet. The guy who personally emails MLS CEOs across the country didn’t have a comment ready.
Nobody got subpoenaed. A briefing is the meeting you take so you don’t get the hearing or the subpoena.
Compass’ FAFO moment might be about to happen and something tells me saying “seller’s choice” a hundred times isn’t going to work.
Compass opens new front against Zillow with complaints to regulators, MLSs
“When sellers choose to publicly market their homes and make them available to the broadest possible audience, Zillow is keeping those listings from buyers because they were not initially prioritized on Zillow,” the spokesperson said over email. “In some cases, Zillow is displaying active, publicly available listings as not for sale.”
You seriously can’t make this shit up.
Damian Eales: Private listings are a ‘right side of history’ test
“It’s almost incomprehensible that the market is moving towards a position where information is not shared, where it’s asymmetrical information, where only some have the information required to properly value that asset.”
You know where I stand on private listings. Not a fan. And stripping out days on market and price changes? Those are facts. Hiding them doesn’t protect the consumer, it blindfolds them.
What makes Eales worth listening to is where he’s coming from. He’s Australian. He’s already lived in the version of this movie where listing agents pay to promote, sellers foot the advertising bill, and buyers don’t get the full picture. So when the guy who’s seen that ending calls the U.S. MLS system “genuinely unique” and lines it up next to the NYSE, that should land.
Call it “seller choice” if you want. It’s really just hiding the ball.
Pick a side.
