StreetEasy Caps Big Brokerages from Experts Program

StreetEasy is making it a little harder for agents joining large brokerages to compete on its platform.

Anybody know any large brokerages?

The Zillow-owned listing platform updated its Experts program to ban agents who are part of companies that make up at least 20 percent of the program from joining, according to an email sent to agents Thursday and shared with The Real Deal.

StreetEasy is not removing existing Experts “at this time,” the email stated.

The change comes after Compass’ $1.6 billion January acquisition of Anywhere Real Estate, which brought brands including Corcoran, Sotheby’s and Coldwell Banker under its umbrella. The deal added almost 90,000 company-owned brokerage agents and 280,000 franchise agents to Compass’ network, giving it significant market share in cities including New York and Chicago.

Compass and its affiliates are the only brokerages above the 20 percent threshold, a StreetEasy spokesperson confirmed. The email stated that a company’s participation percentage is determined using all of its affiliated brokerages and franchises.

StreetEasy’s Experts program is a popular lead-generation tool for agents in the city. When potential buyers request to tour a listing, they are prompted to connect with agents in the program who work in the neighborhood. In 2024, one-third of buyers in the city connected with a StreetEasy Expert at some point in the prior two years, according to StreetEasy’s website.

The program update comes as the fight between Zillow and Compass over how listings are displayed and monetized has ratcheted up in New York City. Last month, TRD reported that Compass convened top agents in the city from Compass, Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty to advise them to temporarily remove listings from StreetEasy beginning in August. In the first week of August, Manhattan for-sale listings on StreetEasy fell 7 percent from the prior week, more than double the typical seasonal decline. Data independently compiled from listing-management system RealPlus showed that 18 percent of Compass’ listings were moved either temporarily or permanently off the market in the Real Estate Board of New York’s Residential Listing Service through Aug. 13.

The participation cap “ensures that agents at companies of every size, from small independent shops to the city’s largest firms, have a meaningful opportunity to grow their business through Experts,” a spokesperson for StreetEasy said.

The program update also comes with changes to the Experts business model. The program is currently free to participate in, but agents are charged a “success fee” — ranging from 25 to 35 percent, depending on the size of the deal — on transactions made through the program. Now, fees on deals that close between $250,000 and $399,999 will be reduced to 20 percent from 25 percent starting in October. For deals under $250,000, fees will drop to 15 percent from 25 percent.

Although the update doesn’t specifically name Compass, StreetEasy general manager Caroline Burton specifically called out the brokerage’s delisting strategy, dubbed its “fall marketing playbook,” in a post on StreetEasy’s website Tuesday.

“One brokerage’s leadership is deliberately making fewer homes visible to buyers to boost their own market position,” she wrote. “It’s a pattern that’s been building for more than a year. But this move is the most aggressive version of it yet, and it’s time to call it what it is: artificial scarcity and gatekeeping to benefit one firm, at the cost of everyone else.”

A spokesperson for Compass International Holdings pointed back to an earlier statement that said the marketing strategy “isn’t focused on pulling listings off any particular portal or website.”

“These listings are still visible to all agents of all brokerages in REBNY’s RLS and their clients,” the spokesperson stated.

Ratcheting up the heat

Compass has pushed its private listing strategy for over a year, which has led to multiple lawsuits between the brokerage and Zillow.

Last spring, Zillow announced a policy that banned listings from its platform that were not submitted within 24 hours of being “publicly marketed.” StreetEasy announced a related policy that would remove agents who were publicly marketing private listings from programs like StreetEasy Experts.

Compass sued Zillow over the policy but dropped the lawsuit after Zillow updated its policy to allow for listings to appear on its site that were publicly displayed on a brokerage’s website.

Compass appeared to shift its strategy following the update to focus on “Coming Soon” listings, which appear on Compass.com but are not syndicated to platforms like Zillow, rather than “Private Exclusives,” which are only visible to buyers working with Compass agents. Research from industry analyst Mike Del Prete found that Compass’ “Coming Soon” inventory nearly tripled this August from last year, while its “Private Exclusive” inventory fell by almost 30 percent.

Compass’ “Coming Soon” inventory is also displayed on Redfin through a partnership between the firms.

The firms are also still currently engaged in a lawsuit filed by Zillow earlier this year after Compass agreed to syndicate all of its listings to Chicago listing service Midwest Real Estate Data’s private listing service.

Battle of the giants

Compass’ outsize market share in cities like New York and its push to market its listings off of public platforms has raised antitrust concerns at the local and federal levels. In June, TRD reported that the New York Attorney General’s Office antitrust division was looking into the residential giant’s footprint in New York City.

Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Compass CEO Robert Reffkin that criticized his efforts to expand Compass’ private listing network in Chicago and requested answers to questions about how he and MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen would maintain equal access to listings and affordability.

Compass and MRED executives also received letters from a U.S. House subcommittee focused on antitrust and regulatory issues, requesting a briefing on the private listing partnership between Compass and MRED. Signed by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, the letter cited worries over housing affordability and consumer access to information.

Last week, Compass was also hit with a lawsuit from a New York City renter claiming that the brokerage’s advice to agents in New York to pull for-sale listings had led to artificially inflated rental prices.