Executives at some of the nation’s largest brokerage networks painted a clearer picture of how they are bracing for potential changes to how the industry approaches commissions, private listings and AI.
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Despite Compass’s all-in campaign to develop alternatives to the MLS and Zillow, most of its competitors have taken the opposite stance — or at least settled on a more diplomatic tone.
But even the brokerages that have been most vocal in their support for Clear Cooperation and Zillow’s private-listing ban are preparing fallback plans, building out new platforms and laying out consumer policies in case the industry moves away from its longstanding stance.
Those plans are taking shape with increasing clarity, according to an Intel review of financial filings and earnings calls at some of the nation’s largest publicly traded brokerages in recent weeks.
Intel’s review surfaced new developments and insights on some of the biggest ongoing questions for the industry, from what’s happening to commissions and the broader market to how the biggest brokerage networks plan to incorporate artificial intelligence models into their businesses.
See what Intel learned in this week’s report.
Fallback options
As the brokerage that has taken the most aggressive public stance against the industry’s Clear Cooperation Policy, Compass has gone so far as to sue Zillow over its private-listing ban, which Compass argues is anti-competitive and violates antitrust law.
And Compass CEO Robert Reffkin has shown no sign of backing down in recent weeks.
“No agent wants to be told by a portal or an MLS how they must work,” he told investors on a recent earnings call. Compass has already built out its “private exclusives” and “coming soon” features that offer sellers an in-network alternative to listing their home publicly.
Reffkin claimed that their use has stayed at “basically the same level” in recent months, going on to describe demand for them as “high.”
This has left competitor Anywhere trying to straddle the line between support for public listings and preparedness for a more fundamental change to the listing paradigm.
A public listing on the MLS is typically “what’s best for the consumer,” Anywhere CEO Ryan Schneider recently told investors, articulating a stance that he claims is helping his company recruit like-minded agents.
But that’s not stopping the company from building out new technology that can serve as “a defensive play” in case the industry does move further toward an expanded private listing approach, he said.
- These include new technology released in June for franchisees that enables them to conduct private listings within their own brokerage, in a way that Schneider said is compliant with industry standards and Zillow’s approach.
- In August, Schneider said on the same call, the company hopes to roll out more cross-brand capabilities that empower brokerages to share more information — including potentially private listings, he said — with Anywhere’s full network.
Anywhere is far from the only brokerage making such plans.
Earlier this year, luxury brokerage brand Douglas Elliman teased that it was working on its own platform, which it dubbed Black Label Private Listings.
But the company is taking a far more cautious approach than Compass, according to principles for the platform laid out by CEO Michael Liebowitz in his company’s second-quarter earnings call.
- With its private-listing platform, Douglas Elliman has set a clear policy against incentivizing or defaulting to private listings, stressing that the decision to list a property privately “must originate from the seller,” Liebowitz said.
The brokerage’s luxury focus poses a distinct set of challenges. On the one hand, luxury clients as a group are more likely to be open to a private listing, which can protect seller privacy and sometimes offer the right strategy for a particular high-priced listing, Liebowitz said. On the other, the private route can backfire.
- Douglas Elliman’s private-listing platform would require the client to sign a document acknowledging that they understand foregoing a public listing could lead to reduced exposure, Liebowitz said.
- It would also install guardrails, including broker review, to ensure compliance with “other listing platforms,” he told investors.
Commissions, AI and more
Investors and analysts also took the opportunity to ask executives at the biggest brokerages for insights on commissions, AI implementation and the broader market.
Here’s some of what they learned.
1. A challenging housing market persists, but recent weeks have been stronger
Top leaders at Anywhere, Compass and Rocket all reported a positive momentum shift in July that appeared substantially healthier than the late spring.
- Rocket’s Brian Brown, CEO of one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, said its pre-approval pipeline suggests the peak buying season will likely continue beyond its traditional Labor Day wind-down in September. “The good news is the start of the third quarter really picked up where we ended the second quarter, so that momentum is continuing,” Brown told investors.
Reffkin of Compass speculated that uncertainty over new tariffs and their potential impact on the economy may have shifted some buyers out of the mid-spring and into later homebuying timelines.
- “I think it can reflect some of the delayed demand from the spring market where tariffs were the focus,” Reffkin said on his company’s earnings call.
2. AI tools continue — and not just for agents
Brokerages are increasingly employing new AI tools to help agents become more productive — but they have no plans to stop there.
- 1 in 3 brokerage document submissions at Coldwell Banker are now automated, Anywhere Chief Financial Officer Charlotte Simonelli reported on her company’s earnings call. That share is on track to rise to 90 percent automation by year’s end, she said.
Future systems are already in the pipeline at numerous brokerages.
At Compass, Reffkin told investors that his brokerage plans to beta-test the next generation of Compass AI this fall.
- This update, referred to as “Compass AI 2.0,” will initially center on agent productivity.
- But eventually, Reffkin added, the company plans to extend its use further across the organization in a bid to increase efficiency throughout its operations.
On the heels of its adoption of AI solution Leo CoPilot, the Real Brokerage also continues to roll out an additional AI feature, Leo for Clients, which it plans to launch in beta mode “later in 2025,” according to its earnings filings.
- Leo for Clients is being designed to offer “AI-enhanced phone lines” for each agent; around-the-clock access to property information; and home-tour scheduling and other services via text message.
3. Brokerages report little sign of commission-rate erosion
Few brokerages put hard numbers to what happened to their commission rates in the second quarter.
But Anywhere proved to be an exception — and the early returns seemed good for the brokerage industry.
- Anywhere’s franchise business reported an average side commission rate of 2.41 percent in Q2, down only one basis point from the same time last year.
- Brokerages owned directly by Anywhere actually saw a two-basis-point bump year-over-year to 2.38 percent.
These numbers suggested a leveling-off of declines in commission rates at Anywhere-affiliated brokerages, at least for now. It’s worth noting that in the spring of 2024, Anywhere’s reported commissions had already dipped a few basis points following the announcement of the NAR settlement terms.
Other brokerages were less explicit, but generally reported business as usual in the second quarter — with small declines in commission rates, if any.
- “Overall, we have not seen degradation” in commission rates, Compass Chief Financial Officer Kalani Reelitz told investors.
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