The off-MLS debate moves to Washington, and agents need a clear script

There is a number every listing agent should be able to explain this week: 4.6%. It is the premium Compass says its private listings earn sellers. There is a second number that says the opposite. And there is now a third party, the United States Congress, asking which one is true.

Start with Washington, because that is what turns a marketing squabble into something bigger. On July 22, the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee sent letters to Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen, giving both until August 5 to brief staff on their nationwide private listing network partnership. 

Chairman Scott Fitzgerald wrote that lawmakers are examining whether real estate companies use these networks “to insulate themselves from competition at the expense of consumers.” The letters named a specific worry: that private arrangements incentivize agents to steer sellers toward private listings so the brokerage can represent both sides of a transaction.

Then, on August 6, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent Compass and MRED a letter seeking details on their private listing network partnership and its national expansion. She cited concerns about hidden inventory, weaker pricing data, fair housing risk and consolidation, and requested responses by Aug. 21. 

Compass took its case straight to sellers. Studying 70,809 of its own closed transactions listed between April 2025 and March 2026, Compass reported that homes using phased marketing, a stretch as a Coming Soon or Private Exclusive before the MLS, sold for 4.6% more and 34% faster than homes listed straight to the open market. “The data is consistent,” said Compass Chief Data Officer Dave Crosby. “Giving homeowners marketing strategies to build interest in their home and refine the price before listing on the MLS and portals leads to a higher sale price.”

Zillow’s research cuts the other way

In a study of more than 15 million sales from 2023 through 2025, Zillow found that homes kept off the MLS typically sold for 1.3% less, a combined $1.36 billion. The pain was uneven. Lower-priced homes gave up 2.2%. Homes in communities of color lost 1.9%, versus 1.1% in majority-white neighborhoods.

Zillow also found that when one agent worked both sides of a sale, sellers lost a combined $1.49 billion. “Sellers deserve an agent whose only job is to get them the best possible price, and a listing that every buyer in the market can see,” said Zillow Chief Economist Mischa Fisher.

A third data point predates this fight and belongs to neither company. A Bright MLS and Drexel University analysis of more than a million sales found homes listed on the MLS sold roughly 17.5% more than comparable off-MLS homes, about $54,000 for a typical seller. Independent research has pointed toward exposure for years.

Follow the incentive and the contradiction dissolves. Compass is building a growth story on private exclusives and keeping more deals inside its own walls, so a premium is the number that justifies the model to sellers and to shareholders. Zillow sells advertising against listings, so its business depends on those listings being visible, and a billion-dollar penalty is the number that protects that model. Both studies can be technically clean and still be built to flatter the company that ran them.

Powerfact: A study is only as neutral as the company paying for it. Read the incentive before you read the percentage.

The breakdown in the research

But notice where the neutral research and Zillow’s own breakdown agree. The seller who gets hurt by going dark is rarely the luxury seller with 10 motivated buyers already circling. It is the ordinary seller, in the ordinary neighborhood, who needed every buyer to see the home.

Powerfact: Maximum exposure is not a sales tactic. It is the seller’s money on the line, and protecting it is the job you were hired to do.

What agents can do

Do not walk into a listing appointment quoting one study and hoping the seller has not seen the other. Name the difference between ‘Coming Soon’ and ‘permanently off-market’ in plain language, because one is a timing choice that still ends in full exposure and the other can mean your seller never meets the buyer who would have paid the most. Give them the real tradeoff, let them own the decision and document it. With a congressional subcommittee asking whether agents steer sellers for the brokerage’s benefit, a written disclosure is no longer housekeeping. It is protection.

Then, check your own motive. If the path you’re about to recommend quietly keeps the commission in-house, slow down and ask whether you are serving the seller or the brokerage. That pause is the whole difference between an advisor and a salesperson.

Compass will keep touting 4.6%. Zillow will keep counting the billions. The lawsuits will grind on. None of it answers the only question that matters at the kitchen table: What gets this homeowner the most money at the least risk? The agents who can explain both studies, tell the truth about the tradeoff, and put the client first will not be threatened by any of this. They will be the reason sellers stop guessing and start trusting.

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a national real estate speaker, coach, and bestselling McGraw-Hill author with more than 40 years in the industry. He is the founder of the POWER AGENT® Program, where real estate professionals learn the scripts, dialogues, and strategies that help them serve at the highest level and build Next Level® careers. Start your free 30-day trial or join a weekly webinar at DarrylSpeaks.com.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

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