Two New York City renters sued Compass on Wednesday, alleging the brokerage built a monopoly over New York City rental listings through a decade of acquisitions and then recently used it to strip inventory from Zillow’s StreetEasy, as rents rose to record highs.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, names Compass as the only defendant.
The lawsuit shows that the fight between two of the largest companies in real estate are now set to square off in the nation’s largest real estate market.
Plaintiffs Peter Castaneda and Haley Gelfand bring claims under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, New York’s Donnelly Act and unjust enrichment, and demand a jury trial.
The pair allege that Compass has acquired roughly two dozen brokerages since 2014, consolidating what they said was over 80 percent market share of Manhattan rental listings.
Citing reporting by The Real Deal, the complaint describes July 22 meetings where CEO Robert Reffkin and other brokerage heads asked top New York agents to temporarily pull listings from StreetEasy starting this month.
According to the filing, the plan was then to delist from StreetEasy and route listings through the Real Estate Board of New York’s Residential Listing Service under a “Participants Only” designation — a status that shares a listing agent-to-agent while keeping it off consumer sites.
The filing also quotes Reffkin’s second-quarter earnings call, where he said roughly 80 percent of Compass listings would show as “coming soon” on Compass’ own site and on Redfin by the end of the third quarter. Data compiled by RealPlus and cited in the complaint puts the share of Compass listings moved off-market at 18 percent.
Castaneda and Gelfand each searched on StreetEasy, each signed a lease in the first week of August on a downtown one-bedroom, and each pays $5,270 a month — roughly $880 above the $4,390 July median asking rent cited in the complaint.
Neither used an agent or paid a broker fee. Their alleged injury is the rent premium itself, which they say would not exist but for the loss of public listings.
The filing cites citywide rental inventory down 40 percent year over year, Manhattan median rent at a record $5,000 against a 39 percent supply decline, and a Brooklyn record of $4,500 with inventory down 27 percent.
The proposed class covers anyone in the New York City metro area who leased a non-rent-stabilized multifamily unit from Aug. 1, 2026, until the conduct stops. They seek an injunction and damages.
The complaint also points to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ inquiry into Compass and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Aug. 6 letter to Reffkin warning of a “two-tiered housing market where insiders pay for exclusive access to housing inventory and market data.”
Zillow is not a party to the case but backed the theory behind it in a statement, saying the company supports efforts to bring accountability to the conduct.
“When listings are deliberately hidden from public platforms, real consumers pay the price,” a Zillow spokesperson told Inman. “This summer, New Yorkers have seen exactly that play out, with one dominant brokerage deciding which homes people get to see and further squeezing the NYC market during a housing crisis.”
Compass declined to comment on the new lawsuit.
