Compass Listing Strategy Takes Bite Out of StreetEasy

Manhattan’s summer listing slump may not be entirely seasonal. A growing share of the borough’s inventory is being pulled from public view and Compass is at the center of the strategy.

StreetEasy listings in Manhattan dropped 7 percent in the first week of August and 11 percent by the second week. That is well above the typical early-August decline: from 2023 through 2025, only about 3 percent of listings were pulled during the first week of the month.

The moves follow a meeting held last month where Compass chief executive officer Robert Reffkin, who urged top agents at Compass, Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty to temporarily remove listings from StreetEasy as part of the brokerage’s “Fall Marketing Playbook.”

Compass has defended the shift, which comes during a historically slow season, as a “common marketing strategy.”

The brokerage’s internal guidance, however, was fairly specific. Agents were advised in an emailed follow-up to the meeting to first remove properties from StreetEasy, then move them off-market in the Real Estate Board of New York’s Residential Listing Service before relisting them as “Participant Only,” a status that allows RLS members to see the listings while keeping them off public platforms.

The numbers suggest the playbook is gaining traction. Data from listing-management platform RealPlus, compiled by Olshan Realty’s Donna Olshan, showed 18 percent of Compass listings had been moved temporarily or permanently off the RLS through Aug. 13. That compared with 6 percent at Douglas Elliman, 8 percent at Brown Harris Stevens, 8 percent at Corcoran and 9 percent at Sotheby’s.

For Compass, the strategy is about more than avoiding stale days-on-market data. It advances Reffkin’s broader effort to make Compass.com a destination for listings while challenging Zillow and its dominant New York platform, StreetEasy. Compass says listings remain accessible to agents through the RLS even when they disappear from public portals.

But the approach is attracting regulatory heat. StreetEasy accused Compass of limiting exposure for sellers and choice for buyers, while New York’s attorney general has been examining Compass’ market footprint. Federal lawmakers have also questioned the effects of private listing networks, particularly the potential for brokerages to capture both sides of transactions.

That leaves Compass with a strategic gamble: in a market where visibility is currency, it is betting that controlled access can be more valuable than maximum exposure.

Here’s what else happened this week in the world of New York City real estate.

Dov Hertz snags record $167M for Staten Island industrial megasite

Dov Hertz’s DH Property Holdings sold a 53-acre industrial outdoor storage site at 1900 and 1800 South Avenue on Staten Island to Jadian Capital for $167 million.

Hertz purchased the parcels in 2020 and 2021 for a combined $79 million and subsequently invested roughly $10 million in capital improvements.

Jadian Capital plans to operate the fully leased property, which features a waterfront dock and rail access, as an industrial outdoor storage site as part of its expansion into the Northeast.

Pinnacle Group sells Upper West Side rental building for $88M

Pinnacle Group sold the rental building at 323 West 96th Street to Lightstone Group for $88 million.

This deal is the second major property sale for Pinnacle Group in a week as the company is offloading assets following a recent bankruptcy filing for thousands of its rent-stabilized units.

Extell snaps up Midtown office building long rumored to be part of assemblage

Extell Development, led by Gary Barnett, purchased the 73,000-square-foot office building at 110 East 55th Street from the Parkoff Organization for $65 million, adding it to his expanding Midtown assemblage on Park Avenue.

The acquisition is part of a larger, ongoing development project that includes the $500 million purchase of a site at 405-417 Park Avenue and the acquisition of additional air rights, with plans potentially involving the relocation of The Brook private club.

Barnett financed this latest deal with a $327 million loan from JPMorgan Chase.

L3 Capital lands Zara in Williamsburg retail development

Zara signed a lease for a location at L3 Capital’s 184-192 Bedford Avenue development in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The retail space will span the lower level, ground and second floors of the 24,000-square-foot building, with asking rents reported at approximately $450 per square foot for the ground floor and $150 per square foot for the second floor.

This expansion underscores Williamsburg’s growing retail prominence, as the neighborhood increasingly competes with established Manhattan shopping hubs like Soho and Fifth Avenue.

Judge tosses Mark Nussbaum’s “bad faith” bankruptcy filings

And finally, a U.S. bankruptcy judge blocked Mark Nussbaum’s attempt to move the wind-down of his defunct law firms into bankruptcy court, ruling the filings were made in “bad faith” to delay asset discovery.

Judge Sean Lane cited a lack of plausible rationale for the filing, questionable motives behind hiring restructuring officer Ephraim Diamond and the absence of a viable path to reorganization as key factors in his decision.

With the bankruptcy filing dismissed, the wind-down process returns to New York state court, where ongoing efforts by Sheldon Eisenberger to collect debts for creditors will continue.