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Last month, D.J. Grubb — President of The Grubb Company, fourth-generation East Bay native, and steward of the brokerage his father and uncle founded in 1967 — and Patrick MacCartee were both appointed to the Board of Directors of the Bridge Association of Realtors, which operates bridgeMLS, the cooperative listing platform serving the East Bay and surrounding Bay Area markets.
There's a reason they said "yes," and to do that we need to tell you about the war being fought right now over who controls the way homes are bought and sold in America.
You've probably heard some version of it — Zillow banning listings, Compass suing Zillow, a Chicago MLS cutting off data feeds, federal antitrust lawsuits flying in both directions.
The media is covering it like a corporate cage match. Two tech giants, billions of dollars, lawyers everywhere.
But here's what that framing gets wrong: This fight isn't about Zillow or Compass. It's about whether you — the person actually buying or selling a home — get a fair shot at the market. Or whether the deck gets quietly stacked against you by people who benefit when you don't know what you don't know.
Let's break it down.
What Is the MLS and Why Should You Care?
The Multiple Listing Service — the MLS — is the cooperative database where brokers share listings with each other. When your agent lists your home, it goes into the MLS. When a buyer's agent searches for homes, they search the MLS. Every offer, every counteroffer, every accepted bid — the MLS is the infrastructure underneath all of it.
It was built on a simple, pro-consumer idea: the more buyers who see your home, the more competition you get, and the more money you walk away with. Basic auction theory. More bidders equal higher prices. Every time. No exceptions.
The MLS is not glamorous. It doesn't have a slick app or a Super Bowl ad. But it is the single most important piece of infrastructure in residential real estate, and right now, two of the largest companies in the industry are fighting over who gets to control it — and who gets to decide who sees what.
Enter Compass: The Private Exclusive Play
Compass — which completed a $4.2 billion merger with Anywhere Real Estate (Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Corcoran, Sotheby's) in January 2026 — is now involved in roughly 1 in every 5 home sales in the United States. That's not a brokerage. That's market infrastructure.
Compass's signature move is what they call the "Private Exclusive." A home gets marketed within the Compass agent network — and only the Compass network — before it ever hits the public MLS. Compass frames this as seller empowerment. Seller choice. Privacy. Exclusivity.
Here's what it actually is: a mechanism for Compass to represent both the buyer and the seller on the same transaction.
Think about what that means. If your home is listed as a Compass Private Exclusive, the only buyers who see it are buyers working with Compass agents. Which means when an offer comes in, there's a very good chance it's from another Compass agent. Which means Compass collects commission on both sides of the deal. Which means your agent's brokerage just doubled its revenue on your transaction — while you, the seller, had a fraction of the potential buyer pool competing for your home.
A Drexel University study of Bright MLS data found that homes marketed through the open MLS sold for 17.5% more than comparable homes marketed off it.
17.5%. On a $1.5 million East Bay home, that's $262,500 left on the table. In exchange for what, exactly? The privilege of your listing staying "exclusive"?
Enter Zillow: The White Knight Who Isn't
Now here's where we have to be straight with you, because we're not here to sell you a narrative.
Zillow isn't fighting this battle for you. Zillow is fighting this battle for Zillow.
Zillow's business model runs on traffic — 235 million monthly users scrolling listings, clicking through to agents, selling lead data back to the industry. If listings disappear from Zillow because Compass keeps them in a private network, Zillow's product gets worse, their traffic drops, and their revenue follows. Zillow's Listing Access Standards — the policy that kicked off the legal war — were designed to protect Zillow's data pipeline, not your equity.
That said: A policy that serves Zillow's interests can simultaneously serve yours. Zillow's position — that any publicly marketed listing should be on the open MLS within 24 hours — is actually correct. Not because Zillow said so, but because the math says so. More exposure equals more buyers equals more competition equals more money for sellers.
Zillow is the only company with enough market power to push back against Compass on a national scale. That doesn't make them good. It makes them useful — for now, in this particular fight.
The Part That Should Actually Make You Angry
In October 2025, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent direct messages to at least eight MLS boards across the country urging them to "discipline" Zillow — to cut off Zillow's access to listing data if Zillow continued enforcing its standards. According to Zillow's federal antitrust complaint, one of those MLSs, MRED in Chicago, had a Compass vice president sitting on its board. That Compass executive was telling Compass agents about board decisions before the board had formally voted.
Let that sink in. A brokerage — one with a financial interest in limiting listing exposure — was using a seat on the cooperative MLS board to advance its own business agenda. The MLS then cut off Zillow's access to 43,000 Chicago listings. Sellers in Chicago woke up with their homes invisible to a platform with 235 million monthly users, because a Compass VP made some phone calls.
This is not competition. This is regulatory capture. And it's exactly why who sits on local MLS boards matters enormously.
Why This Fight Brought Us to the Bridge Board
Now you understand the stakes. And now you understand why we didn't hesitate when asked to serve.
Consider the contrast. On one side of the national story: Compass International Holdings — never profitable in 14 years, freshly merged with Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Corcoran, and Sotheby's, lobbying MLS boards across the country to run a private listing playbook that benefits their double-end deal flow at the expense of seller exposure. On the other side of the local story: The Grubb Company — nearly 60 years independent, locally owned, deeply rooted in Oakland, Piedmont, Berkeley, and Alameda, with no shareholders to answer to and no private network to feed.
D.J. puts it plainly: "The Compass campaign is a Wall Street play and not designed to expose the consumer to all the inventory."
Patrick adds: "Basic auction theory: more bidders equal higher prices, every time. Compass is spending millions lobbying MLS boards to reduce your bidder pool — not because it's good for sellers, but because double-ending deals is the only math that works for a company that's never made a profit. I joined the bridge board because someone who isn't on their payroll needs to be in the room."
The policies that bridgeMLS sets — how "delayed marketing" is defined, how long a listing can be held off IDX feeds, who gets access to what data and when — directly affect whether East Bay buyers and sellers get a fair market or a managed one. Local MLS boards are the last line of defense against the Compass playbook being run on your neighborhood. And those boards are only as good as the people on them — people without a corporate agenda, who don't benefit from double-ending deals, and whose only job is to serve the market.
That's what we're there to do.
What This Means If You're Buying or Selling in the East Bay
A few practical things to know right now:
If you're a seller: Ask your agent directly — will this listing be on the open MLS from day one? If they suggest a "private exclusive" period, ask them to show you the math on what full market exposure has historically done for comparable homes. Then ask them who benefits if the deal double-ends within their network. You deserve a straight answer.
If you're a buyer: The fragmentation of listing data is real. In 2026, no single platform shows you everything. A good buyer's agent has MLS access — not portal access — and can show you inventory before it hits Zillow, Redfin, or anywhere else. That's a competitive advantage that still exists in a local cooperative MLS.
In both cases: The best protection you have is an agent who is legally and ethically obligated to serve your interests — not their brokerage's volume targets, not their company's double-end rate, and not a private network's deal flow.
The Bottom Line
Two billion-dollar companies are fighting over who controls the consumer relationship in residential real estate. Neither one is your friend. Zillow wants your data and your eyeballs. Compass wants both sides of your transaction.
While that fight plays out in federal court, local MLS boards are quietly making the decisions that determine whether the market you're transacting in is open and competitive — or quietly managed by people with an interest in the outcome.
That's why the "bottoms up" approach matters. Not because local boards are more powerful than national corporations. They're not. But because markets are local, transactions are local, and the people with the most to gain or lose from listing transparency aren't shareholders in New York. They're homeowners in Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, and Piedmont.
The Grubb Company will be at the table advocating for them. We always have been.
