Compass and the Northwest Multiple Listing Service settled their 16-month legal battle yesterday. As part of the agreement, NWMLS will launch a new listing status called “First Look” on September 4 that allows showings, open houses, and offers during a pre-marketing window of up to 21 days without public display of days on market or price changes. Days spent in First Look status and any pre-launch price adjustments will be visible internally to NWMLS members but will not be published publicly. Sellers can decide whether a First Look listing appears on IDX websites or whether they want more tailored public marketing instead.

Compass filed the original lawsuit in April 2025, alleging NWMLS engaged in anticompetitive practices, obstructed seller choice, and retaliated by temporarily suspending the brokerage’s IDX feed. Compass said at the time it had spent months trying to negotiate rule changes to allow office exclusives and that NWMLS refused. NWMLS moved to dismiss in June 2025. A judge denied that motion in March 2026. NWMLS then filed a counterclaim in April 2026 arguing that Compass’s three-phase marketing strategy violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act as a deceptive scheme designed to conceal data from the public. Washington also passed a law in June 2026 restricting private listings, though the language was vague enough that its practical effect remains unclear. Five months later, NWMLS settled.

Robert Reffkin, chairman and CEO of Compass, framed the outcome as vindication of the company’s core argument. “MLSs are a group of direct competitors that are telling their competitors how they can and can not compete, which is the textbook definition of an antitrust violation,” he said. Compass invested millions in the litigation, according to Reffkin, and it is looking like it was worth it.

NWMLS President and CEO Justin Haag positioned First Look differently, saying the status came from member feedback and modernizes pre-launch preparation “while ensuring an open marketplace and fair competition, in full compliance with Washington State’s open-market laws.” Both sides are claiming the settlement supports their position, which tells you something about how much the underlying disagreement actually got resolved.

The settlement includes several terms beyond the new listing status. By October 15, NWMLS must require all portals and websites using its data to prominently display listing broker names and contact information next to any contact broker buttons. By the same date, it must stop watermarking listing photographs so the MLS does not take credit for work done by brokers. NWMLS also agreed to apply its rules equally across all Washington brokerages and is barred from taking legal action against Compass under the guise of enforcing state law. By November 15, it must give broker platforms access to data fields and supplements including legal descriptions, FIRPTA forms, preliminary title, surveys, and resale certificates so brokers can work from a single system.

Other MLSs have been moving toward accommodation for months. The CLAW, an MLS in Southern California revised its IDX policy in May 2026 and created an MLS Exclusive status that lets agents share listings with members only, potentially for the listing’s entire lifespan, without syndication to third-party sites. Days on market and price history are withheld until the property sells. As part of that change, CLAW also added Compass’s full active listing inventory. Bright MLS, which covers the mid-Atlantic and is among the largest in the country, has flexible pre-marketing rules and partnered with Compass this year after Compass publicly praised Bright while criticizing MLSs that had doubled down on restrictions. A Bright study found that one brokerage accounted for more than a quarter of its office exclusives, and three companies made up 45% of pre-market listings between 2024 and 2025.

Now, resistance is coming from state legislatures rather than from MLSs themselves. Connecticut was the first state to pass a bill requiring listings to be publicly and widely available. New York has similar legislation moving through its legislature. Washington’s June law prohibits marketing residential properties to an exclusive group of buyers or brokers unless the property is concurrently marketed to the general public. But NWMLS just agreed it cannot use that law as grounds for action against Compass, which raises real questions about how much these statutes accomplish in practice. Compass, Redfin, and Rocket sent a joint letter to MLS leaders in March 2026 urging them to stop penalizing agents for seller-directed marketing plans, and Redfin’s Joe Rath praised the NWMLS settlement as a pro-consumer, pro-competition solution.