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Just days before the announcement of a long-awaited response from the National Association of Realtors to its Clear Cooperation Policy, Compass and Windermere took to Instagram to knock each other over their conflicting positions.
The broadsides began over the weekend when Compass CEO Robert Reffkin posted on Instagram. The post started by congratulating one of the brokerage’s agents for launching among the first “Private Exclusives” in the state of Washington. Compass Private Exclusives are listings that are only available through Compass’ platform.
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However, after the initial congratulatory note, Reffkin went on to criticize Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS), framing it as the most restrictive MLS in the U.S.
Robert Reffkin
“There are ~600 MLSs in the United States, and Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) is the ONLY MLS in the country that has until now prevented homesellers from utilizing Compass Private Exclusives to protect them from the risk of days on market and price drop history,” Reffkin wrote.
He went on to say that NWMLS is not the government.
“Their rules are not laws,” Reffkin said. “Their rules are just policies created by a self-interested brokerage-owned trade group. A trade group shouldn’t tell a homeowner how to market their home — often their most valuable asset. Your home. Your choice.”
The post also reiterated some of Compass’ recent talking points, including the idea that forcing listings into an MLS leads to “negative insights” that hurt a home’s value in the market.
Since that initial Instagram post, Reffkin made several others and singled out Windermere, which is based in Washington.
“In fact, the NWMLS board is controlled by the largest local brokerage, Windermere Real Estate, and the NWMLS board denied Compass’ request to give homeowners in Washington the same level of control over how to market their homes that every other state in the US provides,” Reffkin wrote.
The comments came against the backdrop of a push from Reffkin and industry allies to eliminate Clear Cooperation, which the National Association of Realtors approved in 2019. The rule requires Realtors to put their listings into their NAR-affiliated MLS within 24 hours once they begin marketing, and industry leaders have lined up on both sides of the issue.
NAR is expected to make some announcement on the rule’s fate later this month. As a result, supporters and opponents of the policy have raced to lay out their arguments for and against the trade organization’s existing guidance.
Unlike many other multiple listing services around the U.S., NWMLS is broker-owned and not affiliated with a Realtor association. As such, it has its own rules — including one that, like Clear Cooperation, requires agents to put their listings into the MLS.
For its part, however, Windermere on Monday spoke out in support of Clear Cooperation — and fired back at Compass. In a statement from President OB Jacobi, the company said on Instagram that it supports Clear Cooperation and that “there’s a large national real estate company whose leadership is making a lot of noise about their opposition to Clear Cooperation, suggesting it’s collusive and anticompetitive.”
OB Jacobi
“We would argue the exact opposite,” Windermere — which holds six of 16 NWMLS board seats — added in the post. “The real motivation behind this company’s opposition to Clear Cooperation is pretty clear: wanting to keep listings off the open market so that they can double-end deals and boost profits. Hoarding inventory is only good for one party: the largest real estate brokerage.”
The statement goes on to describe “red flags around fair housing” and argues that eliminating Clear Cooperation will return real estate to a previous era “when our industry was exclusionary.”
“We believe that it is important for there to be some public forum on which listings are gathered and made available to all brokerages and consumers,” the statement concluded.
The statement does not mention Compass by name, but the timing and details leave little doubt that it is referring to Reffkin’s company.
Though the comments from the two companies fall in line with other recent commentary — from both sides — regarding Clear Cooperation, the fact that the two companies have publicly criticized each other on Instagram highlights the growing intensity of the debate over private listings.
It was also not clear what happens next regarding the rules in Washington; Reffkin’s post mentions that private listings were barred “until now” in the state, but did not say what changed to allow them at this point. Inman reached out to NWMLS, but the multiple listing service declined to comment.
Both Windermere and Compass declined to comment on the record Monday.
In the meantime, then, the issue will continue to be litigated in the court of public opinion — and Reffkin, at least, continued pressing his case Monday via a comment he left on Windermere’s post.
“OB,” Reffkin wrote, directly addressing Windermere’s president, “why do you believe NWMLS should be able to tell a homeowner how to market their home?
