Compass vs. Zillow: The Real Estate Wars

If you're in the market for a home, good luck. It can be really difficult right now. I think the general experience for home buyers is that it's stressful. That's our colleague, Nicole Friedman. She covers real estate. It's very expensive to buy a home, especially these days. Home prices are high. Mortgage rates are high. Mhmm. And in a lot of parts of the country, there are still not enough homes to choose from. The inventory is lower than it was before the pandemic, and so they're really kind of glued to the listing sites, you know, waiting for a new home to pop up, hoping that this could be the one. Those online listing sites have become an essential part of buying a home. Sites like Zillow and Redfin list thousands of homes for sale across the country. I think for a lot of buyers, that's where they start the process. If they're thinking about buying a home, even just casually, like, oh, is this the year maybe we should buy? Mhmm. They go to one of these portals. They set up, you know, search alerts for their neighborhood or their budget. Mhmm. And so looking at home listings is often the very first step. And for home buyers, these sites can be a treasure trove of information. Everything from how many days a home has been on the market to how many other buyers have viewed the listing. But one real estate brokerage wants to change how the system works to give more power and flexibility to sellers, and in the process, upend the way real estate is done. That brokerage is Compass. So Compass is trying to promote essentially a different strategy for selling your home. Compass is telling sellers, you know, widely advertising your home for sale immediately is not the best strategy for everybody. Instead, the company is focusing on private listings and limiting what information is shared with buyers. But this strategy has created a giant rift in real estate. This is a really contentious issue, and agents are very passionate on both sides. Brokerages are very passionate on both sides. This is a huge debate going on in the industry about, really, what is the right way to sell a home Mhmm. And how open and transparent should the market be Yeah. And who is speaking for consumers. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Monday, December 15. Coming up on the show, how Compass is trying to change the way you buy and sell your home. This episode is brought to you by US Bank. With US Bank Business Essential, you get more than just a bank. You get a dedicated partner that provides you a powerful combo of checking and card payment processing with quick access to the money you've earned, proving that there's nothing as powerful as the power of us. Visit usbank.com today to learn more. Member, FDIC. Copyright 2025 …