How Compass leverages private exclusive listings to recruit agents

First, let’s set the scene. The source was invited to a nationwide recruiting and education call held on Jan. 30, marketed as a “forum with Robert Reffkin.” The meeting isn’t exactly top secret: A recording of the call is available as an “unlisted video” on Compass’ YouTube page.

In the meeting, Reffkin, Rory Golod, the firm’s president of growth and communications, and Larkin Yanulis, a regional director of strategic growth, shared a “sneak peak at the Compass client dashboard,” and answered agent questions about private exclusives. Our source said the meeting with non-Compass agents from across the country was “well attended.”

Private exclusives = more listings

After sharing commentary about the market and a tutorial on how Compass’s client dashboard works, Reffkin and Golod walked agents through how to pitch Compass’s private exclusive listing strategy to prospective clients.

Private exclusives are the first stage in what Compass is calling its “3-Phased Marketing Strategy,” which it claims is “designed to maximize demand and fine-tune [the seller’s] positioning for the best possible sale outcome.”

When a listing is a private exclusive, Compass privately markets the property to all Compass agents, which it claims allows the seller to test the market to gain insight on the property and its pricing without accumulating days on market or price drops. If the listing does not get any offers in this phase, it becomes a “Compass Coming Soon,” which means the property is searchable by anyone on the internet, but it again will not accumulate days on market or price drop history. If the property does not sell as a “coming soon,” it then goes into the MLS.

Reffkin is so confident this strategy will help agents win more listings that he appeared willing to bet money on it.

“If you can look me in the eye at the end of the year and say, ‘I did not get more listings because of it, it did not give me a huge advantage,’ I’ll give you $1,000. That’s a guarantee for everyone in the company. Even now, if you come to Compass in two months, you can join the thousand dollar guarantee challenge,” Reffkin said on the video call. “So it’s a win-win. Either you get more listings or you get a thousand dollars.”

A Compass spokesperson clarified that Reffkin’s statement didn’t reflect an official company policy or program.

Compass has previously offered a $100 social media campaign to agents for every listing an agent has that begins as a Compass private exclusives and moves to a “coming soon,” according to a report from The Real Deal. This program began on Feb. 1 and runs through the end of May 2025.

It should be noted that Reffkin made his comments months before NAR made changes to its Clear Cooperation Policy allowing for delayed marketing listing that entered into the MLS but not available fro syndication, and Zillow and Redfin said they would ban listings that are publicly marketed without being submitted to the MLS and available to be viewed on all real estate listing sites.

Reffkin and Compass have been waging a public relations war over private exclusive listings against well-resourced brokerage rivals, portals like Zillow, NAR and even some MLSs, since last year.

Compass’s opponents say they’re defending NAR‘s original Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), which requires a listing to be submitted to the MLS within 24 hours of the property being publicly marketed. 

During the late January call, Reffkin called the MLS a “monopoly,” and claimed that CCP is “illegal,” noting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was investigating the policy. While it is true that the DOJ is investigating CCP, in a footnote in an amicus brief filed in mid-March in the Nosalek commission lawsuit, the DOJ wrote that it “has not taken a position that such policies standing alone (i.e., without mandated MLS publication of offers of compensation or exceptions benefitting primarily large brokerages) are anticompetitive.” 

In the January call, however, Reffkin claimed that no agent can do their job without the MLS.

“They have 100% market share and Clear Cooperation makes it so no one else can have market share,” Reffkin said. “To do your job you have to be a member of the MLS and NAR has the three-way agreement, so you have to pay the association. Why is that? Is that for the home seller? Is that for transparency?”

By Reffkin’s estimate, the dues agents pay to the MLSs, associations and NAR in a year come in at around $2 billion.

“What’s this all about? Follow the money,” he said.

He then recalled a statement he attributed to Gary Keller, in which Keller said a decade ago that NAR and the MLSs “sold you out” by taking brokerages’ and agents’ data and giving it to portals.

“I definitely didn’t realize it in 2015, but now I can see it,” Reffkin said. “Clear Cooperation, was it supposed to protect the consumer or to protect the MLS? What do you think?”

“Zillow sells leads, we sell homes”

Reffkin also addressed what he called the “narrative” that the maximum exposure of a property leads to the seller getting the best price possible for the property.

“Ask yourself, is it possible for maximum exposure to equal maximum price is the smartest, most sophisticated people in real estate, the home builders and real estate developers sold almost 400,000 homes off the MLS last year? The reality is the MLS exposure has risks in the way that it is it is changed over the years,” he said. “Thirty years ago, 40 years ago, Cooperation was designed to cooperate with agents and other brokerage firms. It wasn’t designed to force you to cooperate with portals who call themselves brokerage firms that don’t have agents, don’t have clients, and don’t have listings. And every one of those pages hides your contact information. Does your homeowner know they’re being forced to give their listing to this massive system? Do they know that the buyer inquiries are being sold off as third-party leads? Zillow sells leads, we sell homes.”

Despite his strong feelings about CCP, Reffkin said that he believes in a “strong MLS,” as well as cooperation, transparency and mandatory submission.

“But there is a different between mandatory submission and mandatory marketing,” Reffkin said. “The MLS CEOs are all very divided — some of them hate CCP, some of them love CCP. Right now, I’d say 40% of the MLS CEOs are not enforcing CCP in any way because they recognize that the DOJ is actually investigating it and they recognize that maybe a trade group that has 100% market share should not be able to force every home owner give their listing to the MLS. I think by the end of this year, the vast majority of MLSs will no longer be enforcing Clear Cooperation.”

Reffkin has noted on social media that 94% of all Compass listings, including private exclusives and coming soons, sell through the MLS.

According to Compass’ own internal research, homes that were “strategically pre-marketed” achieved a 2.9% higher closing price and received offers 20% faster than properties that did not get this treatment. 

This research directly conflicts with that of CCP supporter Zillow, which found that sellers who did not list their properties on the MLS lost out on more than $1 billion in sale proceeds over the past two years.

Zillow says its researchers found that in 2023 and 2024, sellers who chose not to list on the MLS typically lost out on nearly $5,000, selling their property for 1.5% less than those listed on the MLS. In communities of color, this number jumped to 3.2%, more than double the 1.2% loss recorded in majority-white neighborhoods.