Trump’s Corrupt Gift to Big Real Estate

How one merger reshapes real estate

Credit: iStock/Joe Hendrickson

By Ashley Nowicki, Policy Analyst

Earlier this year, the Trump administration allowed a $1.6 billion merger between Compass and Anywhere Real Estate — the two largest real estate brokerage firms in the country — to close without opposition. The deal creates a real estate behemoth, one capable of wielding enough market power to restrict housing supply, keep seller commissions high, and make it even harder for smaller brokerages to compete.

Americans already pay among the highest real estate commissions among their peer countries, and receive less legal protections. This deal will only exacerbate this problem. And instead of doing something about that, the Trump administration — among the most corrupt in American history — just made the situation worse.

In an effort to push through the merger, Compass hired politically connected insiders — the same Trump administration insiders who promoted other controversially cleared mergers such as the one between HPE and Juniper. When Gail Slater — whom Trump selected to head up DOJ’s antitrust unit — expressed doubt about this and other mergers, she was summarily kicked to the curb.

But what does this deal mean for Compass, homebuyers, and sellers? Now that the deal has closed, the newly combined company is worth $10 billion. It has 340,000 real estate professionals under contract, and is responsible for almost 20 percent of annual home sales volumes — or 1.2 million transactions — in the United States. It does business in all 50 states and, much more significantly, controls an estimated 40 percent of the market in New York City and San Francisco — two of the most expensive housing markets in the United States for both buyers and renters.

Real estate industry experts suspect a major reason Compass acquired Anywhere — the little-known parent of the better-known brokerages Sotheby’s, Coldwell Banker, and Century 21 — was to broaden the company’s use of “pocket listings.” These listings are marketed privately for days or weeks on Compass’s platform (and, as a result of a recent deal, some will also now appear on Redfin) before being listed publicly on other platforms.

What Are Private Listings?

Compass, which has aggressively promoted the practice of private listings, claims it allows sellers to determine what the market will bear, creates demand, and gives buyers additional options and time.

This claim is ludicrous.

There is only one way to determine what a particular property is worth: advertise it to as many potential buyers as possible. When the real estate market is booming, the hope is that a number of those buyers will decide they simply cannot live without a particular property, and bid against one another — a practice known as a bidding war.

Conversely, buyers can sit on listings they believe are overpriced, knowing they will soon find out whether anyone else is bidding on it.

This is how a seller gets the best price, and buyers pay the fairest price.

Private Listings Hurt Buyers, Sellers, Agents, and Competing Firms

But exclusive listings work in the exact opposite way. They lack transparency, leaving would-be buyers in the dark about how long the property has been on the market, whether there have been any price cuts, and by how much.

This allows agents to encourage buyers to bid on houses listed privately at ludicrous prices, under the pretense that they are getting an exclusive, and to avoid competing with other buyers — a buyer strategy that holds some appeal in hot markets. (Before you say mortgage appraisals should stop that, know that almost one in three American homes sell in all-cash deals — driven by investors and the wealthy — and the prevalence is higher in the notoriously expensive real estate markets of New York City and San Francisco, where Compass is a large presence.)

That exclusivity could also incentivize the firm to encourage a client to sell a home for less than the market value — because there are fewer buyers with access to the property. While it is true the real estate firm potentially does better if the house is sold for a higher amount, that’s not necessarily true if there is a different firm representing the seller. If a Compass agent represents both sides of the deal, a house selling for a lower price may be more lucrative, as Compass collects a commission from both sides of the transaction. Indeed, in one survey, agents said the brokerage firm or agent is the primary beneficiary of this policy. As one former Compass agent noted on Reddit, “I LOVED private exclusive listings… for my buyers. Little to no competition for my buyers. I never, never recommended it for my sellers.”

In other words, private listings are not a way to do best by the buyer and/or seller. Instead, they are a way to entice home buyers to use Compass agents — and, crucially, not the agents of competitors — by keeping the property exclusive to their clients.

This also allows Compass to wield power over real estate agents — who work on contract, not on staff — potentially offering them worse financial deals than competitors. Now it will be harder for an agent to switch to a smaller, less powerful real estate company, as there will be fewer firms out there, and only Compass agents will have full access to the inventory for sale.

And this, in turn, gives agents less negotiating power to demand greater compensation — from Compass, that is. And if agents are required to give Compass a larger cut, they are probably even less likely to lower commission fees for buyers and sellers. And that’s a problem because Americans already pay among the highest commission fees when they sell a home in the world.

Anticompetitive Practices

In fact, one industry observer called the Compass-Anywhere deal an “old-school monopoly strategy” with Compass “control[ling] [] distribution… [putting] pressure on intermediaries… [and achieving] market dominance… through structure.” Compass co-founder and CEO Robert Reffkin has affirmed this, stating that the vision for the company is to create a “premier platform in [the] residential real estate [business]” and hold “30 percent market share in our top 30 cities” by 2030.

And because both Compass and Anywhere (not to mention others in the residential real estate sales industry) have a history of anti-competitive conduct — including buying up their competitors — it is not so much paranoia to suspect that their newfound size and scale will accelerate this conduct.

In 2019, Anywhere (formerly Realogy) sued Compass for its “unfair business practices and illegal schemes to gain market share at all costs” with the business model requiring Compass steal trade secrets, talent, and strategies from competitors. Anywhere also accused Compass CEO Reffkin of “personally solicit[ing] [the company] to enter into an illegal price-fixing agreement… limit[ing] agent compensation and ‘compet[ing] on brand’ … not on price.” After a three year legal battle, the companies confidentially settled.

Moreover, both Compass and Anywhere, along with the National Association of Realtors, have also faced multiple lawsuits for colluding to keep commission fees artificially high. This includes working with Multiple Listing Services (MLS) like Zillow and Redfin, which hide commission fees, giving agents the ability to steer the public towards higher-commission sales. Compass and Anywhere settled these lawsuits, and were ordered to make a number of changes. However, these settlements have not meaningfully brought commission fees down.

Other industry players have previously pushed back against Compass and the private listings. In 2025, Zillow and Redfin (owned by Rocket) two of the largest public market places for real estate listings, banned property from their platforms if they ever appeared as a private listing. Zillow claimed Compass was “waging a campaign against market transparency to the detriment of consumers and agents” and Redfin said the ban was to ensure “all buyers [] see all listings”. In response to the ban, Compass sued both companies, but has since dropped the lawsuits.

Now, instead of fighting in court, the companies are working in tandem to expand this practice, too. Compass is partnering with Redfin to offer “pocket listings” on Redfin’s platform, and Zillow seemingly launched their own pocket listing program, allowing brokerages to share private listings on Zillow.

Make no mistake: this deal should have never been allowed to proceed. In Manhattan, New York, and Newport Beach, California, the company will control over 80% of the market by sales volume; in Nashville, Tennessee, almost 70%; in Boulder, Colorado, Washington, DC, and Boston, Massachusetts, over 60%; San Francisco, California, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Houston and Austin, Texas, the company will control over 40%. This level of market share — and substantial reduction in competition — is presumptively illegal under the antitrust laws and violate several of the merger guidelines.

What Can We Do?

All hope is not lost. States are stepping in to keep the buying and selling process transparent. Earlier this month, Washington enacted a law that prohibits real estate brokers from utilizing pocket listings — the strongest restriction in the country to date. (So far, Wisconsin is the only other state that forbids these listings.) Illinois, Connecticut, and Hawaii are also considering such legislative bans. And, of course, the next presidential administration could look to unwind the Compass-Anywhere and other corrupt mergers.

But for now, most Americans will face a monopolized real estate market, one designed to benefit dominant players at the expense of everyone else.