The settlement between NWMLS and Compass suggests a direction of travel for the industry moving forward.
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[I have a business relationship with Compass. They are not involved with my thoughts here, and I have taken pains to refer to only publicly available information for this and all posts.]
Inman reports with a needlessly provocative headline and language that the lawsuit between Compass and NWMLS has been settled. If there had been any doubts about Inman’s bias, those can now be removed.
Compass declared victory in Washington on Monday, as it announced it had reached a settlement agreement with the region’s multiple listing service that will allow agents to market coming-soon listings for the first time.
The settlement agreement comes in the case Compass filed against the Northwest MLS (NWMLS) in April 2025, shortly after the brokerage briefly lost its access to the MLS data feed when a dispute over coming-soon listings boiled over.
The agreement is the latest major policy change by an MLS in response to action by Compass, the megabrokerage that has sought to use its massive size to shape the real estate policies governing the industry into a mold that more closely aligns with its goals.
Compare to the reporting in Real Estate News for a contrast:
Compass and the Washington state-based Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) have settled their year-plus-long lawsuit, Compass announced on Monday.
The first is psyop, the second is reporting. Perhaps Inman’s new CEO should take a look at how his publication is doing things?
Plus, speaking of bias, I disclose my conflicts of interest. My clients buy my time, not my thoughts or analysis, and this issue is something I’ve been commenting on independently for quite some time now. But you can make up your own mind.
I waited a bit to see if any court filings appeared, but I could not find any publicly available source. So I am unable to look through the nitty gritty details, which is what I was hoping to get before writing this. Still, I didn’t want to wait much longer.
The important takeaway from the settlement, and we will need to rely solely on media coverage of it, is that it points to a direction of travel. This one settlement is not all that important in the grand scope of things. NWMLS after all is a private, non-NAR MLS and it has long been unique in some of its rules. But what this settlement suggests about trends is worth thinking about.
So let’s do that together, shall we?