New York, NY – July, 2, 2025 – In its recent public statements responding to Compass’s lawsuit, the Northwest MLS (NWMLS) has made several misleading and self-serving claims. Before addressing those directly, it’s important to set the record straight on what this is really about: homeowner choice.
NWMLS has accused Compass of pursuing a so-called “free-rider strategy” simply because Compass empowers homeowners to use pre-marketing options like Office Exclusives that are available to sellers in every other state. NWMLS also claims Compass “extracts value from others without a corresponding contribution for that value.” We strongly reject and condemn these accusations and believe they are completely baseless and deliberately misleading.
If NWMLS truly cared about free-riding, it would remove Zillow as a member of the NWMLS. After all, Zillow – a NWMLS member – takes all NWMLS listings without contributing a single listing back to NWMLS. In fact, by that same logic, NWMLS itself could be considered the ultimate free-rider: brokerages provide the inventory that gives NWMLS its very purpose, yet NWMLS takes that inventory for free, forces brokers to participate under threat of exclusion, monetizes those listings by selling the data to third parties, and then charges brokers dues to access the very listings they provide.
Compass shares more listings with MLSs than any other brokerage across almost every major market. Even with the Compass 3-Phased Marketing Strategy and Compass Private Exclusives, the vast majority of Compass’ listings are ultimately marketed publicly to all buyers and sold on the local MLS. In fact, the listings that Compass contributes in these markets are the listings that every brokerage relies on to match buyers with sellers and earn commissions. And Compass co-brokes with everyone. That is precisely how the real estate ecosystem works. Does the NWMLS also accuse every other brokerage that depends on these shared listings of being “free-riders”? Their logic simply doesn’t hold up.
NWMLS’s claims that Office Exclusives (Compass Private Exclusives) “destroy competition” and “harm consumers” actively ignore the evidence that disproves these claims. For over 50 years, Office Exclusives have been used by tens of thousands of homeowners every year in 49 of the 50 states in this country, and all of those real estate markets continue to be healthy and thriving without any evidence that competition has been destroyed.
The NWMLS operates under a structure where one brokerage holds outsized influence – occupying six of the board seats and shaping decisions that disproportionately serve its own interests. That same firm double-ends more deals within its own network than any other brokerage in Washington State.
NWMLS does not care about ensuring fairness. In reality, it allows any brokerage to withhold listings from other NWMLS members as long as the listings aren’t advertised online, and even then it ignores a thriving “underground” online marketplace for off-MLS listings in the Seattle area. NWMLS just wants to have a digital monopoly – where any homes openly marketed on the internet must go through NWMLS’s platform and be controlled by their rules. NWMLS isn’t protecting consumers, they are protecting their own power and business model.
Compass competes by empowering homeowners to choose how they want to market and sell their home. NWMLS doesn’t care what homeowners want; it uses its immense power as a monopoly to dictate what homeowners must do. No amount of talk about 'fairness' or 'free-riding' can disguise that fundamental truth.
