“The seller’s notified choice should always be appreciated. No MLS needs to bypass the judgment of the customer or interfere with the fiduciary responsibilities of the professional representing them,” the letter, which was gotten by HousingWire, states. “When a real estate professional acts in excellent faith, provides clear counsel and performs the marketing plan a seller chooses for their own home, that agent is doing exactly what the occupation requires.
“We can no longer stand idly by while our realty specialists deal with punitive actions for following responsibilities to their clients,” the letter continues. “Compass International Holdings and Redfin are devoted to defending our agents who are unjustly disciplined or penalized by an MLS for carrying out a seller-directed marketing strategy.”
Compass doubles down
In the letter, the companies doubled down on Compass’s qualms relating to the National Association of Realtors’s (NAR) Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), claiming that the guideline, which needs listings to be input into the MLS within one organization day of public marketing, exacerbated the pocket or unique listing concern the association was wanting to resolve with the guideline.
“Office exclusives increased as sellers who wanted more control over their marketing timeline chose to keep listings out of the MLS altogether,” the letter states. “Others, wary of the unfavorable and punitive signals related to MLS direct exposure, such as cost history and days on market, chose not to note their homes at all. At a time when the nation faces a major housing inventory scarcity, those results serve neither consumers nor the market.”
With NAR moving control of MLS guidelines and enforcement to regional MLS, the letter argues that it is now up to the MLSs to make modifications that promote seller choice and secure brokers who are performing their client’s demands.
The companies argue that in a tight inventory environment, supplying sellers with increased versatility in marketing their home could cause an increase in offered inventory.
“More listings mean more opportunities for buyers, more organization for agents and a healthier market. MLSs that restrict seller choice work versus the interests of customers and their own individuals,” the letter states.
The letter highlights numerous MLSs, including Unlock MLS, Midwest Property Data, Bright MLS, Canopy MLS, Houston Association of Realtors and MLS Residential Or Commercial Property Information Network, for providing sellers who send listings with a menu of options for home and when they want their listing to be relayed to the entire market.
“Ninety-four percent of listings that are initially marketed off MLS will reach complete MLS distribution to major portals and thousands of brokerage sites,” the letter states. “These MLSs do not weaken openness, and they don’t decrease their own worth. They strengthen both by being the location where seller option lives. We prompt every MLS to follow their lead.”
Nevertheless, the business note that they will decline guidelines or guideline changes that dictate where a seller and their listing agent can and can not market their listings and that they support a few of the legal efforts like those in Illinois and Connecticut that need sellers to sign a disclosure if they choose to not market their listing broadly.
“Lots of legislators are reaching the very same indisputable conclusion: realty professionals need to honor the notified marketing choices their home sellers’ choose,” the letter states. “Their decision should have respect, not penalty.”
Zillow recently changed their policy
The letter notes that Zillow, which has actually been a singing supporter of CCP, recently revealed changes to its own listing access requirements policy, leading compass to voluntarily dismiss its claim against Zillow regarding this policy. The upgraded policy no longer needs listings to be sent to the MLS, just that they are “broadly accessible to the general public in a manner that supplies open access.”
“The MLS is now one path to public marketing, however not the only one,” the letter states.
Addressing realty professionals, the 3 business wrote that if any MLS or brokerage fines or punishes a representative for carrying out a seller-directed marketing strategy, Compass and Redfin will support them.
“It is time to put the customer initially in this market. We are collectively dedicated to taking apart any system that stands in the way of that objective,” the letter states.
The end of constraints
These claims are unsurprising offered declarations Compass CEO Robert Reffkin made during his firm’s Q4 2025 revenues call in late February.
In attending to the collaboration he announced with Rocket and Redfin, Reffkin said that he felt the “alliance marks completion of the restrictions that MLSs have actually had on agents and sellers on how they market homes.”
“Because when they’re restricting the agent and home seller, they’re going to be restricting Rocket. I do not see a scenario where the MLSs will continue to enforce these limiting rules with Rocket and Redfin on our side because we now have more resources,” Reffkin included. “We’re going to provide our public listings to Rocket-Redfin, openly searchable [by] 60 million people. In each of those markets, what’s going to happen is that [the] MLS is going to send our agents a fine for up to $5,000. The agent is going to ask if we can help them, and we will, but what is the MLS going to inform the general public? Are you telling me that you’re fining the representative $5,000 for marketing the listing publicly on a site searchable by 60 million individuals? That you’re doing that to protect fair housing? Are you doing that to secure openness? Are you doing that to make sure that we’re not double ending offers? Or are you doing this not to secure your transparency but [to] secure your own organization design? It is going to expose that.”
Since Compass revealed its syndication deal with Rocket and Redfin, other brokerages and realty websites have actually united to provide pre-marketing services to their representatives. On Tuesday, Zillow debuted Zillow Preview, releasing the pre-marketing product along with Keller Williams, Side, United Property, HomeServices of America and REMAX, while on Wednesday, eXp Real estate announced non-exclusive syndication deals with Realtor.com, Homes.com and ComeHome.com.
NAR did not immediately return HousingWire’s ask for remark.