StreetEasy has hurled the latest rock in the ongoing battle over private listings.
The Zillow-owned listing platform will shut off agent access to widely-used programs like StreetEasy Experts, StreetEasy Concierge and Zillow Premier Agent for New York City agents found publicly-marketing listings to select groups of consumers.
The new guideline includes marketing listings through an “email blast, an Instagram post, or on a brokerage website with the lure of exclusive inventory behind a consumer registration,” StreetEasy general manager and vice president Caroline Burton said in a blog post.
Agents are required to submit a listing to StreetEasy within 24 hours of public marketing, according to the listing policy.
“Hidden listings harm buyers, sellers, agents, and the real estate ecosystem. It’s not right, and it’s not what consumers want,” Burton said in a statement.
The new rule mirrors that of its national parent company Zillow, which on April 14 announced a similar policy targeting publicly marketed listings not submitted to its website.
But crucially, StreetEasy’s rule impacts agents and their ability to access the platform’s breadth of offerings, while Zillow’s rule, which goes into effect in May, will ban offending listings from its platform.
“Agents cannot do their best work when they are unable to compete freely and fairly,” Burton wrote. “They should earn business based on the value they offer, not because they are members of a private listing club.”
All eyes on Experts
The new listing policy could hit Compass agents particularly hard. The brokerage, which has said roughly 48 percent of its new listings in the first three months of 2025 began as office exclusives, has been on the vanguard of advocating for the use of private listings.
Agents with the brokerage claim the lion’s share of the top spots in StreetEasy Experts program, which is a label granted to agents who claim a specialty in a certain building or neighborhood, and have prominent placement on associated listings.
In 2024, Compass represented half of the 10 most active Experts in New York City by sales volume. The five Compass agents appearing on the list claim deals totaling more than $170 million in sales volume through StreetEasy’s Experts program. Daniel Blatman led all Experts in sales volume with $49 million closed as an Expert, while Ante Jakic, Alex Antigua, Leora Aime Hasas and Hillel Fried all placed in the top 10.
A spokesperson for Compass said in a previous request for comment about its agent presence in the Expert program that its brokers “use a range of marketing tools,” and pointed out that StreetEasy has used Zillow’s new listing policy for years.
An hour before StreetEasy announced its new policy, Compass announced that its private exclusives will be available to agents from any brokerage — in a book updated monthly in its physical offices.
“Compass is now the only brokerage sharing all off-MLS listings with the entire brokerage community,” a Compass spokesperson said in a statement. “Unfortunately, there is a persistent false narrative suggesting the motivation behind Compass Private Exclusives is to double-end deals, which couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Listings published in a book that are published in other places not available to all consumers would not be compliant with StreetEasy’s new standards, according to a spokesperson for StreetEasy.
Platforms pick their side
The policy update harkens back to the listing platform’s strict approach to enforcing standards like its long-running requirement for listings to be submitted within 24 hours of public marketing.
Starting in 2020, StreetEasy announced it would kick agents off its platform entirely if they did not submit listings within one business day of public marketing. In 2022, the company took a step back and instead implemented what is effectively Zillow’s current policy, where the listing would not be allowed to be shown on StreetEasy.
The new policy, which goes into effect in June and applies to for-sale listings only, will also block agents using offending private listings from future StreetEasy tools and data. “Brokerages and their agents committing to transparency will soon unlock new offerings from StreetEasy,” Burton wrote.
StreetEasy’s policy announcement adds some heft to the growing crowd of critics pushing back on private listings.
Anywhere Real Estate CEO Ryan Schneider, who had previously been preparing his firm’s subsidiaries for the expansion of private listings, performed an about-face in an April 29 earnings call where he touted the value of the “broad distribution of listings.”
“I think having your listings on public portals is a helpful thing in selling your house,” he said. “So, we’re leaning in pretty hard to … the fact that the broad distribution of listings is best for the customer, whether buyers or sellers.”
That pivot has left Compass standing nearly alone in terms of companies advocating for what it calls “seller flexibility.” Last week, the brokerage sued a Seattle-based listing service over alleged anticompetitive behavior related to its prohibition of the use of private listings.