Breaking Down The NYC Rental Lawsuit Against Compass

A new lawsuit is taking issue with Compass’ market share in Manhattan, claiming the residential giant is making an unfair dent in the rental market.

Two New York City renters filed a complaint this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, who claim that Compass’ marketing strategy, which involves withholding homes from appearing on public-facing sites like Zillow and its local subsidiary, StreetEasy, has led to sky-high rents in the city.

The suit, which seeks class-action certification, alleges that Compass’ behavior, coupled with its market share, violates antitrust laws.

The complaint, filed by Peter Castaneda and Haley Gelfand, who rent a $5,000-a-month one-bedroom unit, focuses on Compass’ outsize market share, citing an analysis from a regulatory publication Capital Forum, that estimated Compass’ controlled 80 percent of the Manhattan market based on 2025 transaction data from RealTrends.

That figure, which sparked headlines earlier this year in the wake of Compass’ $1.6 billion deal to acquire Anywhere Real Estate and its brands like Corcoran, Sotheby’s International Realty and Coldwell Banker, is an estimate based on Compass’ for-sale market share.

The complaint conflates the for-sale market and the rental market, claiming that “controls over 80 percent of the rental unit listings available for renters in Manhattan based on 2025 data.”

But there has been no analysis of Compass’ rental market share, which is in all likelihood much lower than 80 percent, as the rental market is far more fragmented and large numbers of listings are managed by landlords’ leasing offices.

Similarly, the complaint claims that Compass’ strategy of withholding listings from publication on sites like StreetEasy and Zillow has artificially reduced supply and led to higher rental prices.

The only problem is that Compass has never discussed withholding rental listings. In its “Fall Marketing Playbook” presented to New York City agents and previously reported by The Real Deal, the brokerage focused specifically on how agents should handle for-sale listings.

Compass declined to comment on the filing.

While the complaint may struggle to move forward in its current form, it could encourage more lawmakers, regulators and other potential plaintiffs to take a closer look at how Compass’ post-merger size is affecting local markets.

Compass is already facing another antitrust lawsuit from Zillow in Chicago, where it partnered with the local listing service to withhold listings from appearing on Zillow. That case, in which Zillow claims Compass and MRED colluded to stifle competition, is currently waiting for a judge’s decision on Zillow’s request for a preliminary injunction on Midwest Real Estate Data and Compass cutting its data feed.

The latest lawsuit still hits on core concerns raised by critics of Compass that worry about how its size and private listing strategy could distort the housing market by making it difficult for other brokerages to compete and pushing buyers into Compass’ ecosystem if they feel they can’t see all the homes available on the market.

The brokerage is also under considerable antitrust scrutiny, with lawmakers raising concerns that its use of private listings could violate fair housing laws and distort a housing market that is on the whole still short on supply.

In a letter to Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen requesting clarification on their entities’ partnership, Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote that she was “particularly concerned that the non-public, exclusive nature of private listings may perpetuate housing discrimination through residential steering.”

The New York Attorney General’s Office antitrust division is also looking into the residential giant’s footprint in New York City.