According to HousingWire, an industry veteran is raising concerns about private listing networks that keep homes off the Multiple Listing Service. The piece explains how some brokerages, particularly larger firms like Compass, are building strategies around keeping inventory within their own networks rather than exposing properties broadly to the market. This practice has become the subject of a federal court case where California Regional MLS is defending its cooperation rules after Compass threatened legal action over fines related to off-MLS marketing.
The author draws from personal experience going back to the late 1990s, when listing information was genuinely scarce and access depended heavily on agent relationships and networks. Back then, homes could sit with a single brokerage for days before becoming public knowledge, simply because technology couldn't distribute the information faster. The difference today is that we have the capability to broadcast listings instantly across entire markets, so when homes remain private, it's now a deliberate choice rather than a technological limitation.
What concerns the author most is how this strategy shifts the competitive advantage in real estate. When a large brokerage like Compass pursues significant market share in top markets, controlling inventory becomes leverage over both buyers and competing agents. Buyers may find themselves choosing a brokerage not because of superior service, but because it's the only way to access homes they want to see. Meanwhile, sellers who keep homes off the MLS face real consequences, including distorted days-on-market metrics that ripple through appraisals and lending decisions.
According to Zillow data published in January 2025, there appears to be a significant disparity in how different sellers are advised about private listing networks. The survey found that around three quarters of Hispanic and Black sellers reported their agents recommended private networks, compared to about one quarter of white sellers. That same research estimated that homes sold off the MLS in communities of color sold for noticeably less than comparable MLS-listed homes during 2023 and 2024, while the pricing gap was smaller in majority-white neighborhoods.
The author acknowledges that Zillow has its own business interests and those findings warrant independent verification, but questions whether some sellers are being systematically steered toward limited exposure at different rates and paying a price for it. This raises fair housing questions that deserve answers before these practices expand further.
What I am seeing locally here in the Bay Area is that the old information asymmetries are trying to come back in a new form. We've spent decades building systems that make housing data more accessible to everyone, and I worry we're about to undo that progress. In Fremont and throughout the East Bay, sellers and buyers benefit when properties compete in an open market where information flows freely. When large brokerages use scarcity as a business strategy, it doesn't level the playing field, it tilts it, and history shows that tilt doesn't fall evenly across all communities.
