Compass Taps NYC Agents To Remove Listings From StreetEasy

Executives with Compass International Holdings advised top New York City agents across its brands to temporarily remove their listings from StreetEasy this month, The Real Deal has learned.

During two separate morning and afternoon meetings held on July 22 at Extell Development’s Central Park Tower, CIH CEO Robert Reffkin and other brokerage heads suggested brokers temporarily remove their listings from the Zillow-owned platform starting in August, according to some agents in attendance.

Each session, billed as a “Fall Marketing Playbook” launch, included roughly 200 agents. Among them were top agents such as Sotheby’s International Realty’s Nikki Field and Compass’ Leonard Steinberg, as well as Corcoran president Pam Liebman and Sotheby’s International’s executive vice president of sales, Marissa Ghesquiere, according to photos of the event posted to social media.

Agents differed in their takeaways, with some in attendance viewing the meeting as part of Compass’ fight against Zillow and StreetEasy. Others said the suggestion came as part of a broader informational session about how agents can best position their listings, without targeting StreetEasy specifically.

Compass’ Steinberg said that he usually pulls listings off of public platforms in August, which is one of the slowest months for selling real estate in the city. “It’s a case of what the sellers want to do,” he said.

A follow-up email sent to Compass agents after the session provided a playbook to help agents suggest a refreshed listing strategy to their sellers, with the first step being “Delist your listing from StreetEasy.” The playbook suggested using the Real Estate Board of New York’s “Participant’s Only” designation, which shares the listing with other agents using the Residential Listing Service, but does not disseminate it to public-facing sites.

“When Compass uses their clients’ homes as leverage to benefit their own bottom line, sellers lose exposure, buyers lose access and the brokers who play by the rules get undercut,” a StreetEasy spokesperson said in an email. “This is the Compass playbook: pull listings from open platforms, consolidate buyers into their own channels, and call it seller choice. New Yorkers deserve better.”

A spokesperson for Compass said that the meetings were to discuss strategies for the fall market.

“We believe agents have a fiduciary duty to represent their clients’ best interest, and that providing sellers with choices on how to market their properties helps them achieve their individual goals,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Expanding battlelines

The gathering of hundreds of top agents in the city to advise them on taking their listings off of StreetEasy still raises questions about how Compass might use its significant market power in New York City as it has ramped up its fight with Zillow over who controls and monetizes listings.

On Compass’ second-quarter earnings call this week, Robert Reffkin criticized portals like Zillow, without naming it directly, for maintaining what he called restrictive rules over how agents can list properties. He also suggested that as Compass’ use of private and “Coming Soon” listings grows, buyers will start visiting the firm’s website directly for listings.

“Is it unreasonable to expect that the company that has the most listings in the United States is the number one place people search the United States?” Reffkin asked during the call. “I don’t think so.”

The comments hold extra weight after Compass’ acquisition of Anywhere, which brought in national brands like Corcoran, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s International Realty and Century 21, adding almost 90,000 owned-brokerage agents and 280,000 franchise agents that can contribute listings to Compass’ exclusive platform and website.

On the earnings call, Reffkin also pointed to Chicago, where traffic surged to Compass’ own website in the second quarter, as a successful local case study for what happens when listings from Compass agents disappear from Zillow.

For several days in May, Zillow lost nearly half of its listings after the local MLS, Midwest Real Estate Data, cut the platform’s data feed. The previous week, Zillow had sued Compass and MRED, alleging the companies conspired to harm Zillow and stifle competition after Compass syndicated all of its listings directly to MRED as part of the listing service’s national expansion.

Only in New York

The showdown between Compass and Zillow began in earnest last year when Zillow updated its rules in April to ban listings from its platform that were marked elsewhere and not uploaded immediately to its platform. Compass sued Zillow in June of last year over its policy, but dropped the case earlier this year.

Around the same time, StreetEasy unveiled its own policy that would shut off agent access to widely used programs like StreetEasy Experts, StreetEasy Concierge and Zillow Premier Agent for New York City agents found to be marketing listings off its platform.

Brokerage relationships with StreetEasy and the Real Estate Board of New York’s Residential Listing Service are not the same as their relationships with MLSes and Zillow, as most agents input their listings directly onto StreetEasy rather than relying on syndication.

However, Compass has acquired a significant chunk of the agent base in the city after its $1.6 billion acquisition in January of Anywhere Real Estate, which owned major brands in the city like Corcoran, Sotheby’s International Realty and Coldwell Banker Warburg. An analysis from regulatory publication The Capitol Forum put Compass’ market share in Manhattan at 80 percent based on 2025 data from RealTrends.

Compass took a significant step in its brand consolidation earlier this month when it informed agents at Coldwell Banker Warburg that they would be folded into Compass and begin operating as “Warburg at Compass.”

Compass’ consolidation amid its push for agents to use private listings has caught the attention of local and federal officials. In June, TRD reported that the antitrust division of the New York Attorney General’s Office was reaching out to leaders at top New York City brokerages to request information as part of a probe into Compass’ footprint in the market.

In July, Reffkin received a letter from a U.S. House subcommittee focused on antitrust and regulatory issues requesting a briefing on its partnership with MRED and how its use of private listings could impact the housing market.