It has been no secret that Compass has spent the last two years gobbling up market share.
In 2024, the brokerage acquired Chicago-based @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate in a roughly $450 million deal. It followed that up with a $1.6 billion deal for Anywhere Real Estate, the second-largest brokerage in the country by volume behind Compass, which closed in January.
The rapid dealmaking has raised concerns from Compass’ competition and consumer watchdogs that the brokerage is set to be a market-dominant force.
A new study from the Consumer Policy Center, an independent think tank, attempts to put numbers on just how much market share the combined company can claim.
Report author Stephen Brobeck analyzed transactions in five cities — Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Diego and Austin — before and after its blockbuster deals.
In all five analyzed cities, Compass increased its market share to at least 30 percent with its newly acquired brands, according to the study. In Washington, D.C., its market share is estimated to have almost doubled, jumping from 22 percent to almost 40 percent.
The report also shows how much larger Compass is than the competition. In Boston, where the brokerage is now estimated to have a market share of over 32 percent, the next largest brokerage is Keller Williams, with just over 4 percent of the market.
“The concern is that the Compass share is not only very large but also much larger than that of
major competitors,” said Brobeck. “Compass is becoming so dominant in some local markets that consumers will feel both pressure and attraction to list and purchase properties through Compass agents.”
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Brobeck also looked at the percentage of deals that Compass double-ended. Critics have accused Compass’ private listing strategy of being an attempt to double-end more deals and improve its margins, which the brokerage has repeatedly denied, pointing to internal data showing that 94 percent of its listings that start off as a private listing end up on the MLS.
Its recent acquisitions have further fueled concerns that Compass plans to create its own walled garden of inventory. “With an additional 180,000 Anywhere agents to make referrals to, the double-ending rates of Old Compass agents should increase,” Brobeck wrote.
Compass double-ended more than 20 percent of its deals, but its rate of double-ending was comparable to other firms in four of the five analyzed cities. Washington, D.C., was the exception, where Compass double-ended over 40 percent of its deals, more than twice the rate of the next most active firm in the area.
Brobeck said he expects Compass to use its new market share to ramp up its competition with portals and build the company’s brand awareness in an effort to decouple itself from the country’s dominant home search platform, Zillow.
“They don’t want Zillow pushing them or controlling them in any way, shape or form,” Brobeck told The Real Deal. “They want to act independent of Zillow.”
Compass took a step in that direction just one month after its deal with Anywhere closed when it announced its partnership with Redfin to exclusively display its listings before they hit the MLS.
The timing of Compass’ recent growth also came at an opportune moment, when the Department of Justice has taken a more lax approach to antitrust enforcement, according to the report.
Brobeck doesn’t see that changing any time soon.
“They view themselves as having a clear political field for at least the next, say, three years,” said Brobeck, which will allow them to “try to really expand and get a lock on markets.”
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