Compass and Zillow are pointing to dueling data as their legal fight over private listings spills into a broader battle over which model delivers better outcomes for sellers.
Compass added fresh fuel to that fight Friday, releasing new research that claims sellers who began as Private Exclusives or Coming Soons sold their homes for 4.6 percent more than comparable sellers who went directly to the MLS and search portals.
The analysis lands as Zillow has pointed to its own court-filed expert analysis arguing that Compass private listing network sales were associated with lower sale prices. Together, the competing claims underscore how the fight over private listings is playing out not only through legal briefs and MLS policy debates, but through conflicting data about whether pre-marketing helps or hurts consumers.
Compass shares new numbers on phased marketing
Compass’ new analysis looked at 70,809 closed Compass residential transactions listed between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026, across markets where the brokerage operates. The company said homes that began as a Compass Private Exclusive or Compass Coming Soon sold for 4.6 percent more than comparable homes that went directly to the MLS and portals.
Compass said the study used a causal inference methodology and controlled for more than 50 variables, including property characteristics, agent and team attributes, seller demographics, neighborhood-level variables and macroeconomic conditions. The company said that this finding was statistically significant, with a 95 percent confidence interval of 4.2 percent to 4.9 percent.
But Compass also noted the analysis was limited to closed transactions and did not account for listings that were withdrawn or expired without a sale.
Dave Crosby, chief data officer at Compass, said in the report that the data shows phased marketing helps sellers “build interest in their home and refine the price before listing on the MLS and portals.”
Compass also said homes that began with phased marketing went under contract 34 percent faster once they became active and were 29 percent less likely to experience a price cut once active. Those figures, however, were based on descriptive statistics, rather than the same causal analysis used for the sale-price claim.
The new report is not the first time Compass has sought to put numbers behind its private listings strategy. In February 2025, the company released research saying pre-marketed listings were associated with 2.9 percent higher sale prices, accepted offers 20 percent faster and were 30 percent less likely to experience a price drop after listing on the MLS.
Compass has since used those figures in court to argue that Zillow’s listing access standards interfere with a marketing strategy it says benefits sellers. During the July preliminary injunction hearing in Zillow’s case against MRED and Compass, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin pointed to similar figures and testified that 94 percent of listings that start in phase one of Compass’ 3-Phase Marketing Strategy ultimately move to phase three, where they are launched publicly on the MLS.
The latest Compass analysis updates and expands that argument, putting a higher number on the claimed sale-price benefit.
Zillow’s competing case
Zillow, however, has put a sharply different set of numbers before the court.
Dr. Lawrence Wu
In a supplemental expert declaration filed on July 6, Zillow economist Lawrence Wu said his analysis found Compass private listing network sales were associated with lower prices, not higher ones. Wu said Compass PLN sales were associated with prices that were 4 percent lower in Chicagoland and 4.8 percent lower nationally.
Wu’s analysis used Zillow transaction data from January 2022 through December 2025 and identified likely Compass private listing network sales as homes that entered the MLS as sold or were recorded as sold within one day, with Compass agents on both sides of the transaction. That differs from Compass’ latest analysis, which looked at Compass-sold homes that began as Private Exclusives or Coming Soons, including homes that later went active on the MLS.
Zillow has also pointed to data about the early life of a listing to argue that broad public exposure matters. During the July hearing, Zillow executives described the first days of a listing as especially valuable, with fresh listings receiving roughly 180 views on the first day before dropping to about 60 views by day five.
Zillow has framed its own listing access standards, as well as Zillow Preview, as a transparency-focused alternative to private listing networks. The company argues that listings marketed privately before being distributed broadly across the internet disadvantage buyers who do not have access to those private channels and undermine the trust consumers place in search portals.
Why the numbers don’t line up
The competing claims are difficult to compare directly because they measure different universes of listings. Compass is analyzing Compass-sold homes that began as Private Exclusives or Coming Soons. Zillow’s expert used a proxy to identify homes sold through Compass’ private listing network. Other research has examined zero-day MLS entries, buyer access concerns or MLS participation rather than seller sale prices.
Compass’ release also points to research from Darren Hayunga, a professor at the University of Georgia, who studied 20 years of Dallas-Fort Worth home sales and found that pocket sales sold for 1.7 percent more, with a premium of more than 8 percent for luxury properties.
Hayunga has described the difference as a “negotiation tax,” or the discount sellers can face once days on market and price reductions become visible to buyers. The paper focused on one market and used zero days on market as a proxy for pocket sales.
Darren Hayunga | University of Georgia
Consumer advocates have examined the issue from another angle, focusing less on seller sale prices and more on buyer access, transparency and fair housing concerns. Groups including the Consumer Federation of America and the National Urban League have warned that private listings can limit access for buyers who are not connected to the right agents or brokerage networks.
An April Consumer Policy Center report also argued that Compass’ market share in key metros, combined with higher double-ending rates, raises additional concerns about the company’s private listings strategy.
MLSs are also evolving their own approaches, further blurring the line between public and private. MRED has defended its Private Listing Network as a way to keep limited-marketing listings inside the MLS ecosystem. Bright MLS, meanwhile, has moved toward more granular listing-entry and distribution options, including listing statuses and controls over how listing data appears across different channels.
Those shifts suggest the fight is no longer simply over whether listings should be public or private. Many major players in the industry now offer some version of pre-marketing, coming soon, office exclusive, private listing network, preview period or listing-distribution control.
Increasingly, the battle is over who controls the first days of a listing, who gets access to that information and what data should be used to determine whether consumers benefit. That question now sits at the center of Zillow’s case against MRED and Compass. Zillow is asking the court to protect listing access standards it says preserve transparency and consumer trust, while Compass argues the standards punish seller choice and interfere with a marketing strategy it says improves outcomes.
