What StreetEasy’s Experts Cap Means for Compass, NYC Agents

New York City brokers and StreetEasy have a love-hate relationship.

The platform is the go-to site for buyers shopping homes in the city, with its backend bolstered by its parent company of more than a decade, Zillow. Operating as the city’s de facto multiple listing service (MLS) means the site provides a real-time vein of unmined leads for agents looking to work with buyers through its blue “Request a Tour” button.

Agents on the other side of the button are not the listing agent, but a buyer’s agent who has been dubbed a “StreetEasy Expert.” The status is New York City’s version of Zillow’s controversial Flex program, a free-to-join, invite-only model where agents who close a deal with a buyer referred through the program pay a “success fee,” essentially a referral fee.

The program sparks mixed reactions, with agents bemoaning the cost, and listing agents in particular complain about having buyer leads funneled away from them. But many agents, especially those who are newer to the industry, have found the program to be a valuable lifeline for growing their business. (In 2024, one-third of buyers in the city connected with a StreetEasy Expert at some point in the prior two years, according to the platform.)

StreetEasy recently appeared to be leveraging the influence of the program with changes to its terms of participation for Experts, banning agents who are part of companies that make up at least 20 percent of the program, and likely shaking up competition among some of the city’s top firms, complicating how companies can recruit and retain brokers.

The changes appear to be a thinly veiled attempt to hit back at Compass International Holdings, which oversees the Compass brokerage, as well as Corcoran and Sotheby’s International, following the company’s advice to top agents in the city to temporarily pull their listings from StreetEasy in August.

The fine print of the email StreetEasy sent to agents and shared with The Real Deal clarified that market share was determined using all brokerages and franchises affiliated with a parent company. A StreetEasy spokesperson confirmed that Compass and its affiliates are the only brokerages that collectively exceed the 20 percent threshold in the city.

In practice, the change would bar any agent joining Compass, Corcoran or Sotheby’s in the city from joining StreetEasy Experts. Brokers overseeing large teams at these firms will also not be able to add new hires as Experts, and agents already at these firms waiting to join will also not be added.

A valuable resource

StreetEasy’s website is peppered with testimonials from agents about how the program changed their career, and agents told TRD it’s not just propaganda.

“So many new agents built their entire book of business off of StreetEasy Experts,” said the Agency’s Michael Birlya. Birlya said he started his career sitting around at open houses for more experienced agents’ listings in the hopes of connecting with an interested buyer.

“Once I had Experts, I started doing a ton of buyer deals at price points I had never touched before,” he said. “I was never introduced to a 3-, 4-, 5-million-dollar buyer until I had the program.”

Corcoran agent Trina Cooper estimated the program accounts for 30 percent of her annual business, and she is now seeing the initial buyer leads convert to additional referrals. “It’s been very good for growth,” she said.

Despite the success some have had with Experts, other agents in the city are quick to criticize the service – and StreetEasy in general – for monetizing their listings by selling buyer leads to other agents.

Some of the frustration likely stems from a nostalgia for the program’s early days, when it was completely free to use, before it switched to a pay-to-play model in 2015.

In 2019, StreetEasy rolled out its current setup, which charges a “success fee” to agents who closed a deal with a buyer found through the program. The structure more closely mirrors the general referral fee setup that exists when agents refer buyer leads to other agents.

In its recent update, StreetEasy also lowered the fees, which ranged from 25 to 35 percent, depending on the size of the deal. 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.

Taken together, the changes strike at new agent recruiting and retention, a high-margin segment of the business for brokerages.

Newer agents and people who rely on StreetEasy leads for their business are “definitely going to be less inclined to stay at a Compass,” said Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman.

But even Freedman, a frequent critic of Compass, said StreetEasy may be divisive among agents, but the platform makes for a formidable opponent for brokerages.

“Nobody’s like looking at StreetEasy and like, ‘They’re my hero,” she said. But that’s where people look for homes, she added.

Along with boosting business for individual agents, models like Experts are critical for the back-end of brokerages. Agents who rely on these programs produce a high-margin line of revenue for their firms because they typically are working under lower commission splits, one executive with a local boutique brokerage pointed out.

“It’s always been the case that your super-high performing agents are not generating much revenue for you,” said the executive. ”You want a workforce in which you’re giving 50 cents on the dollar to your agents, and you’re keeping 50 cents.”

Compass, which counts almost 90,000 company-owned brokerage agents and 280,000 franchise agents in its network after its $1.6 billion acquisition of Anywhere Real Estate in January, relies on a mix of low agent commission splits and collecting agent fees along with high transaction volume.

Following Compass’ deal for Anywhere, boutique brokerages in the city aimed to position themselves as foils to the residential giant, but Compass still boasted some of the industry’s top technology offerings and a growing network of private listings.

Agents looking to switch brokerages now have a real trade-off to consider with the loss of Expert status, which other brokerage heads say may boost their shops as compelling alternatives.

“I think this is a great thing,” said Howard Hanna NYC CEO Michael Rossi of the platform’s recent changes. “They need to be hit back every time they hit somebody. No one’s really strong enough to punch back.”