Robert Reffkin on Compass’s pre-marketing strategy: What’s the downside?

The heated debate around the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP) has roiled the real estate brokerage space as a result of fierce pushback on the rule from Compass.

But company CEO Robert Reffkin has a question amid what he characterized as “negative narratives and scare tactics.” What’s the downside for a home seller of Compass’s “three-phase marketing” strategy?

On Compass’s first-quarter 2025 earnings call on Thursday, Reffkin opened by doubling down on the company’s opposition to CCP. He reiterated his belief that sellers deserve to have a choice in how their property is marketed. And he answered his own proverbial question.

“There is no downside,” he said. “The worst thing that happens is a homeowner gets an offer, and they have an opportunity to turn it down and go to the public sites with the benefit of price discovery from pre-marketing. That’s the downside, which means there is no downside.”

CCP is a rule from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that requires Realtors to place a listing on a NAR-affiliated multiple listing service (MLS) within 24 hours of the property being marketed elsewhere.

This process serves as an obstacle to Compass’s mission to build an inventory of exclusive listings, as it forces listing agents to choose between Compass’s website and the MLS. And with Zillow adopting its own version of CCP, choosing against the MLS also means choosing against Zillow.

The drama around CCP hasn’t prevented Compass from growing. The company’s market share hit an all-time high, rising from 4.47% a year ago to 6% of all home sales in Q1 2025. Its principal agent count jumped to 20,656 at the end of March, a 41.6% annual increase.

That increase is primarily driven by the company’s acquisition of Christie’s International Real Estate and @properties in December, in which Compass paid with $150 million in cash and roughly 44 million shares of its stock.

Revenue rose from $1.1 billion in Q1 2024 to $1.4 billion in Q1 2025. Operating cash flow was positive for the fifth quarter in a row, hitting $23 million. Still, the company suffered a net loss of $51 million, although that’s down considerably from the $132 million loss in the same quarter last year.

Reffkin acknowledged on the call that economic headwinds are impacting the housing market. The threats of tariffs from President Donald Trump in March — and the actual tariffs he implemented in April — are affecting consumer behavior, although he believes that the market will be in line with 2024.

While the real estate industry is pushing back on Reffkin’s assault on CCP, Compass’s three-phrase marketing plan is taking hold. The percentage of its listings that are “Private Exclusives,” which is the first stage, has steadily increased. 

These listings do not appear on Compass’s site, but if they’re not sold during that period, they enter the second stage called “Coming Soon,” which does place them on the site. In the third phase, the listing goes on the MLS and third-party sites.