Compass Under Antitrust Scrutiny as New York AG Opens Formal Inquiry

The New York attorney general’s office has opened an antitrust investigation into Compass International Holdings, the country’s largest residential real estate brokerage by a wide margin.

AG Letitia James’s antitrust bureau has already moved beyond the preliminary stage. Agents from the office have reached out directly to leaders at top brokerages across New York to collect information. The Wall Street Journal covered the story Wednesday, providing details on how the merger that created this situation cleared federal review in the first place.

Following the news of the investigation, Compass stock dropped 11.8% to $7.61 on Wednesday. The stock is now down 28% year-to-date, though it’s still up 23% over the past 12 months.

Here’s what’s happening and what real estate agents need to know. 

How Compass Got Here

Compass didn’t become the dominant force in residential real estate through organic growth alone. The company pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy that, in the span of roughly a year, transformed it from a large brokerage into something the industry hadn’t seen before.

The two headline deals:

• 2025: Compass acquired @properties for $444 million, which included the Christie’s International Real Estate brand
• 2026: Compass acquired Anywhere Real Estate for $1.6 billion, closing in January after just four months. The companies had predicted the process would take nine months when they announced the deal in September 2025.

Anywhere was the second-largest residential brokerage in the country and the parent company of some of the most recognized brand names in the business:

• Century 21
• Coldwell Banker
• Sotheby’s International Realty

When the Anywhere deal closed, Compass grew from roughly 40,000 agents to more than 200,000. The combined entity rebranded as Compass International Holdings, and the company was operating in a category of its own.

That scale is exactly what’s now drawing scrutiny. Compass holds 30% to 40% unit sales share across five markets examined by the Consumer Policy Center, with dollar-volume percentages running even higher. 

Before the merger closed, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden pointed to the two companies’ combined grip on Northern California, where they held nearly 70% of residential sales by dollar volume.

Why Regulators and Lawmakers Were Already Watching

Federal regulators had serious concerns about this merger before it ever closed, and those concerns were well documented.

Gail Slater, head of the DOJ’s antitrust division, wanted to launch an extended review to determine whether the deal was anticompetitive. She was overruled by senior officials after Compass made its case directly to then-Deputy AG Todd Blanche, who agreed that any concerns could be addressed without a formal investigation. 

Compass had also enlisted Mike Davis, a Trump-aligned lawyer known for helping seat conservative judges on the federal bench, to help argue its position to Blanche’s office.

Senators Warren and Wyden wrote to both the DOJ and the FTC in December 2025, urging them to closely scrutinize the deal. Their letter laid out specific concerns:

• The merger could allow the combined company to keep commission fees artificially high
• The combined entity could exert greater control over the real estate market, consumer access, and the homebuying process
• The two companies already held nearly 70% of residential sales by dollar volume in Northern California and more than 40% in New York City before the deal closed

The deal closed anyway, in January, after just four months. A DOJ spokeswoman said at the time that the department had complied with its obligations under antitrust law, and added that nothing would preclude the department from taking enforcement action in the future if anticompetitive effects were found. 

The New York AG’s office appears to be taking that door seriously.

The Private Listings Fight and the Zillow Conflict

Compass has used its expanded scale to push its private listings strategy aggressively, encouraging sellers to list within Compass-affiliated brokerages before making those listings publicly available online. Compass argues this gives sellers flexibility to test pricing or prepare a listing before it goes fully public. 

Zillow and other critics argue sellers benefit from maximum exposure, and that limiting distribution ultimately hurts consumers.

The strategy has played out most visibly through Compass’s partnerships with regional MLSs:

• MRED (Chicago), Realtracs (Nashville), and BrightMLS (Mid-Atlantic) each announced expansions allowing subscribers to join regardless of location
• Each MLS said it had partnered with Compass to ensure all Compass listings remain accessible to its subscribers
• Compass has severed its listing feed from Zillow, meaning if a partner MLS also cuts Zillow’s feed, Zillow loses all access to Compass listings in that market

The consequences have already shown up in Chicago. MRED moved last month to sever Zillow’s direct data feed, and more than half of all listings in the market went dark before a federal judge ordered them temporarily restored. 

Litigation between Zillow, MRED, and Compass is still ongoing. Realtracs has announced it will cut Zillow’s data feed on June 8, 2026, which would set up a similar situation in Nashville.

The AG’s investigation doesn’t have a defined scope yet, but the combination of market concentration, MLS partnerships, and the private listings push gives regulators plenty of ground to cover. 

If the office finds a violation, it could pursue fines or force Compass to divest parts of the company. 

Stay tuned for more as this story develops.