Compass’ proposed merger with Anywhere seeks to reshape brokerage world. Agents have opinions.

Nearly two weeks after Compass surprised the real estate world with its plan to acquire Anywhere Real Estate, agents across the country are still digesting what the merger could mean for their businesses, their clients — and the future of the industry itself.

Compass and Anywhere Real Estate said on Sept. 22 that they planned to join forces, with Compass as the new parent company. Compass currently has about 40,000 agents, and Anywhere comes with 300,000 under its umbrella, including several well-known brands such as The Corcoran Group, Sotheby’s International Realty and Coldwell Banker. Anywhere also brings access to some international markets and its title insurance, escrow and relocation services. Compass and Anywhere had $415 billion in business between them in 2024. In June, Compass said its agents alone accounted for 18% of the market, based on data from real estate rankings firm RealTrends.

Some agents who spoke to Homes.com saw opportunities in the deal for better access to technology, while others expressed concern about the perceived loss of local control.

Robert Reffkin, Compass CEO, and his counterpart at Anywhere, Ryan Schneider, told their agents in emails the day of the announcement that it would be business as usual going forward.

“I want to make it clear that each company will continue to operate separately and independently, maintaining its own distinctive brands, platforms and cultures,” Reffkin said in an employee email his firm shared with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Some wondered what would happen after the two giants join forces, particularly after Compass Chief Financial Officer Scott Wahlers said in comments to investors that the combined company would look for “expense synergies” as it takes on Anywhere’s billions in debt, such as office spaces that are no longer needed.

“‘Synergies’ usually translate to cost-cutting … and that often hits support staff, marketing and training,” Mario Deniz, a central Florida agent, said in a social media post. “At the end of the day, Wall Street may win — but will agents?”

Compass agents told Homes.com they’re thrilled about merging with Anywhere, but they’re taming their excitement until the plan clears federal regulatory hurdles.

“I personally think the Anywhere acquisition can benefit Compass, giving it a much larger footprint and more influence in the industry,” said Cindy Chen, an agent with the company in New York City. “The increased amount of agents and market share can also provide data and information to enhance Compass’ technology platform, which then can deliver a better consumer experience.”

"What impressed us about Compass is that it was a modern version of a real estate company, because it was built based on technology to help agents," Jack Pearson, an agent on New York's Long Island who joined Compass six years ago, said regarding his team. "Other agencies weren't developing anything to make it efficient for us to do our jobs."

Steve Halpern, one of Compass’ founding agents, called it the latest action Reffkin has made to improve the brokerage and industry.

“Compass doesn’t make rash moves,” Halpern said. “Every step has been intentional, and this is no exception.”

Once news of the merger broke, some Compass agents began asking upper management what the move would mean for the day-to-day work of the various brands and for the clients they serve, said Leonard Steinberg, a Compass agent in New York City.

“People who think there’s going to be a problem with these brokerages being under one umbrella are really being blind to the fact that multiple brokerages have been this way for decades and competed remarkably well,” Steinberg said. “And they’ve seen growth over the years.”

Steinberg said Anywhere's current debt load caught his attention but he learned it had been even higher in the past and he expects the latest deal will help pay it down faster.

Since cofounding Compass in 2012, Reffkin, "a big incredible thinker, has elevated the industry," said Matt Breitenbach, an associate real estate broker with the company in the Hamptons. He's "a once-in-a-generation-type of leader ... like the Elon Musk of the real estate world or the Steve Jobs."

How agents will react after the official merger is to be seen, though past acquisitions may hint at possibilities.

In May 2024, Compass acquired Tennessee’s leading brokerage, Parks Real Estate, which boasted 1,500 agents and $6.25 billion in sales volume the year prior, according to the official announcement. Aside from the Anywhere deal and the December 2024 purchase of @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate, this acquisition was among Compass’s largest.

Upon the acquisition, original Parks Real Estate founders, Bob and Marie Parks, and the former chief operating officer, Jenni Barnett, went on to make a new brokerage, Onward Real Estate.

“Nothing against Compass other than it’s a stock-held company,” Bob Parks told Homes.com. “We believe in local ownership, decisions are made locally, and we give back locally to our community. We told [leadership] if you do that, you have the right to do it, but all of us will leave.”

About 350 agents left to join Onward. Agent Wendy Monday was one of them.

She had joined Compass in 2019, but left 11 months later for Parks, returning her nearly $30,000 bonus.

“People like to have control over their business,” Monday said. “It’s a very vulnerable thing to live by commission check only. … It’s really important for an agent to be well-versed in their own specific market to serve somebody well, and it’s not as important to serve a global brand to sell your client well.”

Questions or conflicts would be escalated to the headquarters in New York rather than having a go-to contact in her market, and commission payments took days longer to hit the bank, Monday said.

It is common for some brokers to shift between brands, particularly after mergers or business changes. Parks and Monday told Homes.com that they wouldn't be surprised if brokers who prefer local control leave and start their own offices.

Compass expressed confidence in its ability to retain agents.

"We value our agents and are committed to supporting their success and growth," a Compass spokesperson said in a statement. "While every experience is unique, the company today reflects years of learning and listening to agent feedback, as evidenced by our 97.5% principal agent retention rate last quarter. We’re proud of the collaborative, in-person culture we continue to build and invest in."

The National Association of Realtors, among the largest trade organizations in the country, declined to comment on the deal’s market implications. “NAR serves its members and the industry by fostering competitive, transparent and fair real estate markets,” a spokesperson told Homes.com in a statement. “It is not our role to comment on the business models of industry participants.”

Because of the breadth of Anywhere’s brands, the acquisition could have varying effects on different teams of agents, depending on their structure.

For HRLS Partners, a team of four agents in Washington, D.C., part of the TTR Sotheby’s International Realty franchise, though, the deal presents an opportunity, according to Robert Hyrniewicki.

“This is very exciting because [our] firm remains a franchise in the sense that it’s locally owned. Management and ownership is still the same, so running the day-to-day operations, that’s not going to change,” Hyrniewicki, a founding member of HRLS, told Homes.com in an interview. “We’re still going to have the same brand. It’s TTR on the ground level … and so it could be possible the best of both worlds.”

More than that, Hyrniewicki said he sees the deal as a catalyst, diminishing the importance of brokerage names and instead making individual agents more important.

“Before, the differentiating factors were the brokerage,” he added. “You’ve taken that sort of out of the equation, because the platform is going to be the same for everybody.”

The deal comes at a particularly interesting time for the HRLS team, though. In April, the foursome — including Hyrniewicki, Adam Rackliffe, Chris Leary and Micah Smith — left their brokerage, Washington Fine Properties, after it was acquired by Compass.

“It’s Compass,” Hryniewicki said at the time of HRLS’ decision to move to TTR. “In our local marketplace, Compass does not have a luxury presence.”

This week’s deal, however, is different.

“Washington Fine Properties was independently owned and Compass came in and bought the ownership and bought the company and kept the name the same,” Hyrniewicki explained. “Now, Compass has come in and bought the parent company, and since we’re a franchise, and we’re independently owned, that ownership structure stays in place.”

Compass and Anywhere aim to finalize their combination by September 2026, but the deal must first clear regulatory review. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which handles antitrust matters, declined to comment.

Compass said in September that it had hired antitrust expert Ethan Glass as its chief legal officer. Glass worked earlier in his career for the U.S. Department of Justice, the company said in a statement, investigating alleged anticompetitive practices on Multiple Listing Service databases, where many houses are advertised.

Compass has moved to offer listings privately before putting them on the public MLS databases. The online marketplace Zillow responded by banning listings marketed for more than a day before they go on the MLS. That prompted Compass to file suit against Zillow, accusing it of violating antitrust laws.

The Anywhere acquisition could put Compass in a position to offer more listings as "private exclusives," ones that are shared only within its internal network and clients.

Reffkin said in the statement that hiring Glass “reflects our unwavering commitment to seller choice and challenging these restrictive practices that limit when, where and how homeowners can market their homes."

As that battle plays out, agents have mulled their prospects. Scott Strough, a Compass associate broker and principal of Strough Advisers in the Hamptons in New York, said he saw promise in the combination.

“If I go into Aspen, for instance, I don't know anything about Aspen. I've never been there,” he said. The new combination would allow “me to go to a Corcoran broker. It allows me to go to a Sotheby's broker. And now that person, he or she is going to be receptive, because I'm calling as a Compass broker, and immediately they'll say, 'Oh, you know, we live in the same house.'”

Homes.com editor Valerie Kellogg contributed to this story.