The race is on for brokerages to capture clients in an incredibly difficult housing market, and Compass believes a new technology offering will give it an advantage.
The brokerage on Monday launched Compass One, a client-facing portal that provides a guide through the process of both home buying and selling. Compass One gives clients easy access to relevant documents, calendars, listings and communication with their agent.
“Buying and selling a home can be stressful and confusing—but it doesn’t have to be,” said Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin in a statement. “By enabling agents with technology that delivers 24/7 transparency before, during, and after the transaction, Compass One showcases the agent’s value well beyond just facilitating transactions: It reinforces their role as trusted, full-service real estate advisors, providing clients with expert guidance at every stage of homeownership.”
Compass One becomes available to clients when they begin shopping for or selling a home, and they can access it on both a desktop and through a mobile app. Within the platform’s dashboard, clients can view documents like offers, appraisals, listing contracts, open houses and more. It also provides market analyses, a calendar of upcoming events and a list of taks to complete tasks.
For buyers, the platform has their preferences for a home and relevant listings, which include both Compass exclusives and those on the local MLS. Sellers have access to all offers.
The portal could allow Compass to take advantage of the elimination or overhaul of the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), which requires seller agents to list a property on a Realtor-afflicated MLS within 24 hours of signing a listing agreement.
Opponents of CCP say it limits “seller choice,” the choice being whether to list their home on the MLS. Proponents claim that position is disingenuous and that exclusive listings dramatically limit advertising exposure for listings and thus it is detrimental to sellers.
Should the policy go away, Compass One would be the destination for listings exclusive to Compass, which the brokerage has made central to its value proposition.
Reffkin has been more than vocal about his opposition to CCP and the value of exclusive listings to the company. On Compass’s third-quarter earnings call last year, Reffkin warned of the “risk of MLS exposure.”
The National Association of Realtors have held meetings on whether CCP should be eliminated or adjusted, but it has made no conclusive decision, nor is there a timeline for them to do so.
