The marketplace is fracturing. Here’s how to compete anyway

Something changed in the last several days, and I want to make sure every agent reading this understands what it is — because it’s going to show up at your next listing appointment, whether you’re ready for it or not.

The real estate marketplace that agents relied on for decades — one cooperative system, broadly accessible to every licensed professional — is fracturing. Not slowly. The largest organizations in our industry are building parallel inventory channels, and agents across the country are the ones sitting at kitchen tables trying to navigate it.

Compass — now the largest residential brokerage in the country with 340,000 agents after absorbing Anywhere Real Estate — struck a three-year partnership with Rocket and Redfin to display listings before MLS submission.

Zillow launched Preview with Keller Williams, REMAX, HomeServices of America, Side and United Real Estate and 24 other brokerages. Howard Hanna launched HannaList. Douglas Elliman launched Elliman Private Listings. EXp announced coming-soon syndication to Realtor.com, Homes.com and ComeHome.com starting April 15.

Roughly half of all Realtors now belong to a brokerage with a formalized private listing structure or pre-market portal partnership. This is no longer a single-company story. It is an industry story. And the agents who build a plan for it now will be the ones who thrive.

The MLS you built your business on is still there. But it is no longer the first stop for a growing share of inventory. That changes what you need to know before you walk in the door.

What fragmentation actually means for you

When I started in this business 40 years ago, the MLS was the whole game. You listed, you submitted, and every agent could see your listing, and buyers competed. That system wasn’t perfect — but it was cooperative, and it gave every agent equal access to every listing.

Let there be no mistake … we have gone from being cooperative brokers to competing brokers.

What’s being built right now is something different. Large brokerages are creating inventory ecosystems where listings circulate among their own agents and buyers before the broader market sees them. Some sellers prefer that — less foot traffic, more privacy, one point of contact. Those are legitimate benefits for the right seller in the right situation.

The practical reality for many agents is this: If your brokerage doesn’t have a formal pre-market program, you may be working primarily from the public MLS — which is increasingly where inventory arrives after it’s already been seen elsewhere.

Your buyers may be missing homes. Your sellers may be hearing pitches about programs you don’t offer. Neither of those has to put you at a disadvantage — but only if you’re prepared.

How to level the playing field

I’m not writing this to create anxiety. Forty years of watching this industry has taught me that agents who understand a shift while it’s happening build stronger businesses through it. 

Here’s how to compete effectively in a fragmented marketplace regardless of what programs your brokerage offers:

Know what every option actually offers — including the trade-offs

Private listings and coming-soon strategies have real benefits:

• Less disruption for the seller
• More privacy
• A smoother process with fewer parties involved

They also come with trade-offs: a more limited buyer pool during the pre-market phase, which may affect competition on price.

Zillow’s research across 2.72 million transactions and Bright MLS data both confirm pre-market listings can take longer to sell and may affect the final price. That’s not an argument against them — it’s information a seller deserves to weigh.

The agent who can present both sides honestly and let the seller decide is doing something genuinely valuable.

Build the relationships that give you access

Private listings aren’t listed on a portal for you to see; therefore, it moves through relationships. Introduce yourself to listing agents at the dominant firms in your market now — before your buyer needs it.

A phone call with a specific, qualified buyer is not a cold ask. It’s a professional conversation that opens doors the MLS can’t. Be the agent they think of when they need a qualified buyer for a listing that isn’t public yet.

Monitor coming-soon platforms every day, not every week

Several platforms now display pre-market inventory publicly. Zillow Preview, Redfin’s Compass Coming Soon display and eXp’s multi-portal syndication are all publicly accessible. An agent who checks these daily sees a meaningfully different market than one who checks weekly.

In a competitive market, a 48-hour head start on a pre-market listing is the difference between writing an offer and reading a just-sold notification.

Position your value around access and knowledge

In a fragmented marketplace, the agent who knows where inventory actually lives — not just what shows up on the MLS — is delivering something buyers can’t replicate on their own.

That’s a more powerful value proposition than it was five years ago. Use it.

At your next buyer consultation, explain the landscape honestly: A growing share of homes never appear on Zillow at all, and working with an agent who knows how to find them is genuinely different from searching a portal alone.

The marketplace is changing faster than most agents realize. But the fundamentals of why sellers and buyers need a skilled, informed, honest agent have not changed. A fragmented marketplace makes those fundamentals more valuable, not less.

The agents who understand what’s happening right now — and show up prepared for it — will be the ones their clients trust most when this moment in the industry finally settles.

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