Four of the nation's largest brokerages announced Open Real Estate. AGNT, HomeServices of America, Keller Williams and Real REMAX Group. The pitch: a largely open, shared database of listings. The target: private listings, the thing Compass loves.
Note the word "largely."
The system includes an option for certain private listings. It's called "participant view." Per the site, those homes sit where only agents at participating brokerages can see them. Nobody can publicly market them. Not even the listing agent.
So the anti-secrecy database has a secrecy feature. Bold. It's like opening a vegan steakhouse with one cow in the back, for the regulars.
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin responded on X. He congratulated them. He said he's excited about a national listing service that returns power to the homeowner and their trusted agent. Read that again. The man being attacked sent flowers. That's not a rival. That's a guy who read the rulebook and saw his own name in the margins.
Compass has history here. It sued Zillow over private listings, then dropped the suit. It teamed with MRED, the Chicago-area MLS, on a nationwide private network. A House Judiciary subcommittee sent letters in July asking about it. Compass printed a physical book of private listings once. A book. In the 2020s. The company that fights for secret information also publishes a catalog.
Open Real Estate's Pareja says this isn't a national MLS. Fine. It's a national not-MLS. It replaces nothing, competes with someone, and has a back room.
If you're a retail trader reading this to pick a side, stop. Both sides want to own the list of houses you can't afford. One hides it in a book. One hides it in a view. You'll lose to both.
Four giants built a window and kept one curtain. Reffkin applauded, because he owns the curtains.
Photo by ΠΠ»Π΅ΠΊΡΠ°Π½Π΄Ρ Π on Unsplash
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