The second day of Zillow’s preliminary injunction hearing put Compass International Holdings CEO Robert Reffkin at the center of the dispute, as he defended the brokerage’s three-phase marketing strategy and accused Zillow of using transparency and fair housing concerns to protect its own business.
But Zillow used cross-examination, emails and testimony from MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen to press its coordination theory, arguing that Compass worked with MRED and sought to push other MLSs to challenge Zillow’s Listing Access Standards.
Reffkin, who testified first on July 2 before U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr., denied that Compass directed MRED to cut off Zillow’s listing feed. But his testimony also gave the court a fuller view of Compass’ broader campaign against Zillow’s standards, including its outreach to MLSs, its defense of Private Exclusives, and its argument that sellers should decide when and how their homes reach the open market.
Reffkin said 3-phase marketing is meant to reach the open market
Reffkin opened his testimony by defending Compass’ three-phase marketing strategy as a seller-choice tool modeled on phased marketing used by homebuilders, developers and consumer brands.
He likened the approach to “how Apple would premarket the iPhone before launching it,” and testified that 94 percent of listings that start as Private Exclusives ultimately reach phase three, where they go live on the MLS and hit the public market.
“There will be some people that will claim you’re just trying to double end deals and sell them in phase one, but we try to remind them it’s not called the one-phase marketing strategy,” Reffkin testified. “It’s called the three-phase marketing strategy — it’s intended to go through all phases.”
Zillow later pressed that point on cross-examination, asking whether 94 percent of Compass’ three-phase listings fail to sell in phases one and two. Reffkin rejected that characterization.
“It’s not a failure if it doesn’t sell in phase one and phase two,” he said.
Reffkin also repeated Compass’ broader argument that its Private Exclusives and coming soons can help sellers test price, build demand and avoid public price drops. He pointed to a Compass board presentation that he said showed listings launched through those channels were associated with a 2.9 percent higher sales price, 20 percent faster days on market and 30 percent fewer price drops.
Compass turned fair housing criticism back on Zillow
Reffkin also pushed back forcefully against arguments that Compass’ Private Exclusives could raise fair housing concerns by limiting access to inventory. Transparency and fair housing have been central to Zillow’s case against Compass’ three-phase strategy, with the portal arguing since the National Association of Realtors updated its premarketing policy that private listing channels hurt sellers, buyers and the broader market.
Compass’ attorneys walked Reffkin through the company’s three-phase marketing disclosure form, which warns sellers that choosing a Private Exclusive or coming soon could affect the number of potential buyers, showings, offers or final sale price. The form also says sellers choose those options for legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons unrelated to protected characteristics.
Reffkin delivered one of his sharpest rebukes of the hearing when asked to respond to testimony that Private Exclusives could enable race discrimination, accusing Zillow of invoking fair housing concerns to protect its own market position.
“I believe Zillow is using historical Black discrimination to maintain power and profits,” Reffkin testified. “I believe Zillow doesn’t care about Black people; they’re using Black people. Zillow isn’t suing us to protect Black people. Zillow is suing MRED and Compass to protect their dominant market power.”
Reffkin described Zillow’s carrots, sticks and billion-dollar offer
Reffkin’s testimony also offered a more detailed account of Compass’ interactions with Zillow before the portal announced its Listing Access Standards.
He testified that a former Zillow executive told him Zillow had “carrots” and “sticks” and that Compass should meet with Zillow if it did not stop marketing homes outside the portal. At an April 1 meeting, Reffkin said Zillow CFO Jeremy Hofmann told him, “We will not allow you to market listings outside of Zillow. We will not allow it.”
Reffkin also testified that Zillow later offered Compass between $1.3 billion and $1.6 billion in annual revenue uplift if Compass agreed not to let its agents market listings outside Zillow.
“They offered Compass $1.3 [billion] to $1.6 billion of annual revenue uplift,” Reffkin said. “They said it would — the goal was to double Compass’s market share.” Reffkin testified that the proposal would have routed buyers interested in Compass coming-soon listings on Zillow to Compass buyer agents, allowing Compass to be on both sides of those transactions.
Asked why Compass rejected the offer, Reffkin pointed to his mother, who he said has been a real estate agent for most of his life and is now an agent at Compass. He also said Compass agents are independent contractors.
“With every decision I make, I say, would — would I do that for my mom?” Reffkin testified.
Reffkin also framed Zillow as benefiting from the listings agents create without contributing listings of its own. Zillow, he said, does not contribute “not one paying agent subscriber, not one listing” to the MLS system, while extracting listing content and value from agents.
“They’ve been able to do that for — for a number of years, which effectively makes agents the cheapest creators of content in the world,” Reffkin said.
Zillow used texts and emails to build its coordination theory
Zillow attorney Bonnie Lau used cross-examination to focus on communications between Reffkin and Jensen, including texts showing that Reffkin sent Jensen Zillow documents from Compass’ New York lawsuit against the portal.
In one exchange, Jensen asked whether she could forward a Zillow strategy document to the Illinois Attorney General and news reporters. Reffkin also directed a Compass employee to send Jensen documents related to MRED, MLSs, lobbying and Illinois.
Zillow also pointed to an April 24 text in which Reffkin connected Jensen with Compass President Neda Navab, writing that Navab would help “a few dozen Compass agents that have been banned” sign up with MRED that day. Jensen testified that she “loved” the message because she was focused on the possibility of getting more agents.
Lau also pressed Reffkin on MRED’s April 24 press release, which said Compass International Holdings would provide MRED with a data feed of all of its active MLS listings and subsidize some costs for the first 100,000 Compass agents to join MRED.
Reffkin said he did not know how many Compass agents had joined MRED, had not seen data on the number and did not know whether Compass was tracking it. He also said he was “pretty certain” Compass had no goal for how many agents would join.
Zillow has argued those communications show Compass and MRED coordinated to pressure the portal into abandoning its standards. Jensen denied that characterization when she took the stand later Thursday.
“When we suspended Zillow’s feed, we acted completely on our own,” Jensen testified, adding that the decision came “only after a year of conversation with Zillow” in which MRED repeatedly said Zillow’s ban did not comply with its license agreement.
Jensen also said using previously banned Compass listings to justify a suspension “wasn’t the plan.”
Bright MLS exchange showed Compass trying to widen the fight
Zillow also used Reffkin’s cross-examination to show how Compass pressured other MLSs to follow MRED’s lead.
In one email exchange presented to the court, Reffkin urged Bright MLS to update its IDX rule language to mirror MRED’s and to tell Zillow it would lose IDX access if it could not prove that every listing it banned had been premarketed.
The email exchange presented to the court showed that Bright ultimately declined to intervene, with Bright CEO Brian Donnellan telling Reffkin and other Compass executives that the MLS “cannot take sides in a disagreement between your company and Zillow” and would “continue to call balls and strikes based strictly on our established rules.”
Lau asked Reffkin whether he felt Bright had “sold out” Compass.
“I think Bright MLS is just scared of getting sued, so they don’t want to enforce their own rule neutrally,” Reffkin testified, echoing his broader argument that Zillow’s lawsuit was intended to “prevent contagion” by scaring MLSs away from enforcing their own rules.
Lau then read Reffkin’s email response aloud in court.
“The truth is, you and Bright MLS and all the MLSs except MRED and Realtracs have completely sold us out,” Reffkin wrote. “I no longer want to support Bright MLS in any way and, of course, I’m not coming to your event this summer. No need to respond.”
Asked about the email, Reffkin described it as “a very emotional response.”
Experts split over whether the fight harms competition or just Zillow
The day ended with dueling expert testimony over whether the feed cutoff and alleged coordination harmed competition or primarily harmed Zillow.
Debra Aron, an expert witness for MRED and Compass, testified that Compass and MRED are not horizontal competitors and that Zillow’s claimed justifications for its standards were “pretextual.” She also testified that denying an injunction would not harm competition and that any harm to Zillow could be calculated as money damages.
Zillow later recalled economist Lawrence Wu, who pushed back on the idea that direct broker feeds could replace the MRED feed. Zillow pointed to a May 9 email from Thad Wong, co-founder of @properties, the Chicago market leader Compass acquired in 2025, stating that without listings from Compass, @properties, Christie’s International Real Estate, Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty and Coldwell Banker Realty, Zillow would no longer be a credible search option in Chicagoland.
Wu said the document supported his view that Compass, which he said had 20 percent of the relevant listings, could make direct brokerage feeds “not a credible alternative to the MLS.” He also testified that if broker feeds are treated as substitutes for the MLS feed, then brokerages and MLSs are horizontal suppliers of listings to Zillow.
Tharp is expected to rule after post-hearing briefing, with the parties still divided over whether MRED was enforcing its own rules or whether Compass and MRED coordinated to pressure Zillow.
