As predicted in 2024, mergers and acquisitions — even the rumored ones — dominated the headlines in 2025. Other top stories stemmed from what one can and cannot do with listings. Whether private listings are good for consumers, whether Zillow can ban listings that don’t go on the MLS within one day, whether MLS listings should be displayed with non-MLS listings — the debate raged on. Some rules changed, and some of them may be decided by the courts in the end.
TAKE THE INMAN INTEL SURVEY FOR DECEMBER
As we end 2025, let’s take a look back at the top news stories of the year, as chosen by you, our readers. What makes the list — and what doesn’t — might surprise you. So without further ado, here’s a countdown of Inman’s Top 5 most-read news stories of 2025.
Robert Reffkin (left) and Warren Buffett (right)
5. Compass negotiating to buy Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
By Taylor Anderson, Jim Dalrymple II, March 13, 2025
When rumors broke this spring that Compass was in talks to acquire Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Inman reporters went to work, spending days talking with sources who said a deal was imminent — though they were not willing to go on the record.
Compass, Robert Reffkin and BHHS did not immediately respond for comment, but HomeServices of America President and CEO Gino Blefari strongly denied that the two companies were in acquisition talks shortly after the Inman story was published.
When asked about it on the Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast, HomeServices CEO Chris Kelly said, “The context around it is: Let’s think about the time that everybody was in, in that moment, right? So that was, again, post-litigation, verdict, everyone’s trying to settle.
“As you guys know, you run a really large company as well, too. You’re always having conversations, right? Like a lot of the companies that HomeServices has bought over the years, we’ve had conversations with for years. Sometimes it materializes, sometimes it doesn’t. And if, every time someone had a conversation, it turned into that kind of headline, it would be really false.”
Compass buying another brokerage would be major news, wouldn’t it? Of course, the news broke in September, just six months later, that Compass will acquire Anywhere. This news dominated the news cycle and opinion columns on Inman toward the end of the year.
EXTRA: Compass to acquire Anywhere in $1.6B deal, capping rise to top
4. Zillow to prohibit listings that are privately marketed starting in May
By Lillian Dickerson, April 10, 2025
Just when it seemed like the industry could collectively settle into the new buyer agent rules, the National Association of Realtors tweaked the Clear Cooperation Policy and created a new MLS policy, called the Delayed Marketing Exempt Listing.
As the name suggests, the new policy allows sellers “the option to instruct the listing agent to delay marketing a listing through Internet Data Exchange (IDX) and syndication for a period of time. Each MLS will have discretion to determine a delayed marketing period that is most suitable for their local marketplace.”
The tweak came against the backdrop of growing private listing networks at brokerages, with Compass as the concept’s most vocal advocate.
In April, the country’s largest real estate search portal, Zillow, announced a ban on listings that aren’t added to the MLS and provided to Zillow within 24 hours of being publicly marketed. The policy went into effect in June, with brokerages such as eXp hopping on board.
In June, Compass filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Zillow has employed “anticompetitive tactics to protect its monopoly and revenues in violation of the antitrust laws.”
The war is currently raging in the courts, with a recent hearing taking place to decide if “Zillow’s ban has caused Compass irreparable harm and, if so, whether to stop Zillow from enforcing it as Compass’ antitrust lawsuit against the portal giant works its way through the courts,” Inman reported. Expect to have those questions answered early next year.
EXTRA: Zillow and Redfin listing ban FAQ: What you need to know now
3. Real estate lawyers take big stand against agent commission sharing
By Andrea V. Brambila, Jan. 24, 2025
Just five months after NAR’s commission settlement rules went into effect, there was still a lot of confusion over forms and best practices. It’s no surprise that a legal meeting of the minds at Inman Connect New York 2025 drew a lot of reader attention.
NextHome’s James Dwiggins moderated a panel with CRMLS’s General Counsel Ed Zorn and Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s Chief Legal Officer Jessica Edgerton titled “The Next Legal Storm.”
Both attorneys had advice: Stop commission sharing, don’t use standardized state forms that allow commission sharing, show all homes that meet buyers’ criteria regardless of compensation offers, ask for buyer-broker compensation in the offer, and avoid listing an amount when sharing that sellers are open to offers that include a buyer’s representation fee concession.
The duo also agreed that another way to avoid future lawsuits is to keep NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy, but the CCP was tweaked just three months later (see No. 4).
2. Keller Williams takes on major investment from CoreLogic owner
By Jim Dalrymple II, Jotham Sederstrom, March 3, 2025
Back in March, rumors of a Keller Williams-Stone Point deal had been swirling for weeks. Then came the announcement that the 42-year-old, fiercely independent Texas-based franchisor would sell an investment stake to Stone Point Capital. At the same time, Chris Czarnecki was named as Mark Willis’ replacement as KW’s CEO.
The terms of the deal were not made public, but a spokesperson told Inman that KW would be owned by “Gary Keller, Stone Point Capital, and other members of the company’s leadership team,” and that Czarnecki would also be “coinvesting alongside Stone Point.”
You might remember Stone Point as the parent of CoreLogic, now Cotality, a name that debuted with a rebrand later that month. Many predicted that 2025 would be an especially active year for M&A, and this story kicked off the first of many strategic moves to strengthen brokerage positions in an uber-competitive landscape.
EXTRA: Keller Williams CEO: Private listings should be a ‘local decision’
1. NAR overturns ‘no-commingling’ rule in Executive Committee vote
By Jim Dalrymple II, June 5, 2025
At the Realtors Legislative Meetings in Washington, D.C., NAR’s midyear conference, the trade group’s leadership voted to rescind a policy that separated listings that came from multiple listing services from those that came from non-MLS sources, called “the no-commingling rule.” It was a controversial optional policy that allowed MLSs to prohibit brokers from displaying MLS listings and non-MLS listings together.
Part of the controversy around the rule came from an antitrust lawsuit that now-defunct brokerage REX filed against both Zillow and NAR, which REX eventually lost. But documents from that case showed that 29 percent of Realtor-affiliated MLSs did not opt to adopt the rule.
Years ago, Zillow began complying with the optional policy, but this spring, before the rule was rescinded, the portal quietly began allowing the display of non-MLS listings with others on the platform, rather than obscuring them with a filter that many users never knew existed.
The no-commingling rule was also under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice at the time.
EXTRA: NAR in 2025: staff shakeups, risk reduction and policy moves
What news stories of 2025 stuck with you? Please call them out in the comments section below.
