A fierce fight over transparency in the local real estate industry appears to have reached a truce.

The primary repository for home listings across Western Washington, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, has settled with the brokerage Compass and loosened its stance on semiprivate home listings.

Compass touted the settlement Monday, saying its “original objective” behind the lawsuit “has been fully realized.”

The NWMLS framed the decision as offering sellers “enhanced flexibility during the early stages of a listing without walling off inventory inside closed or private networks.”

The dispute revolves around Compass’ practice of advertising homes through a three-phase strategy: first privately to other Compass brokers, then as a “Compass Coming Soon” listing on Compass and Redfin, and finally in the standard public process using multiple listings services that feed scores of sites across the web.

While Compass argues the process benefits sellers by allowing them to test the market before listing their home broadly, the NWMLS and others have argued the practice obscures key information and harms homebuyers. When listings are marketed privately and then later listed broadly, they may not show the true number of days the home has been on the market or all price changes. Those are key data points that can give homebuyers leverage when negotiating.

Citing those concerns, the NWMLS outright barred Compass’ practice in most cases. Compass sued, labeling the listing service a monopolist intent on limiting competition. Meanwhile, as that case wound through the courts, state lawmakers passed a bill to prohibit real estate brokers from marketing properties to limited or exclusive groups except in cases of health or safety concerns.

The new settlement strikes a middle ground.

Beginning Friday, real estate agents will be able to list homes in the NWMLS with a designation called “First Look.” Those listings will be accessible to the more than 30,000 real estate agents who are members of the listing agency, but sellers can choose whether they’re offered more broadly on sites like Zillow, which use the agency's feeds to populate their sites.

Stats like days on market and price changes during this First Look phase will be accessible to agents through the internal NWMLS system. Sellers can list homes with the First Look designation for up to 21 days and can choose to host showings or wait until they advertise the home more broadly.

“We are giving sellers the flexibility they desire when preparing a home for market, while steadfastly protecting buyers from private networks,” NWMLS CEO Justin Haag said in a statement.

Compass said the new option protects sellers from “the risk of public price drops or days on market.”

“We brought this lawsuit on a fundamental principle: homeowners deserve the absolute right to control how their properties are marketed,” Compass CEO Robert Reffkin said in a statement, “and real estate brokers should never face fines from NWMLS simply for following their client’s lawful instructions.”

Under the settlement, the NWMLS will also require third-party sites like Zillow to more prominently display listing agents alongside Zillow-affiliated agents.

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