The New York attorney general’s antitrust office is investigating the merger between Compass and Anywhere Real Estate that created a $10B residential brokerage titan.
The merger was announced in September but closed earlier this year, creating a giant in the space with some 340,000 real estate professionals. The attorney general's office could pursue legal action to force Compass to sell assets if its investigation finds that the deal, which combined the first- and second-largest residential brokerages, ran afoul of antitrust law.
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A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office confirmed that an investigation is ongoing and declined to provide additional details. Compass declined to comment Thursday morning.
The investigation from Attorney General Letitia James’ office was first reported Wednesday morning by The Real Deal. Shares in Compass dived by more than 12% on the news but were trading up more than 3% Thursday morning.
Prior to the merger, Compass was by far the largest brokerage in the country, with $231B in sales in 2024, and Anywhere was second at $184B in deals, according to RealTrends data.
Compass was founded in 2012 and went public in 2021 but never turned a profit until the middle of 2024. Before targeting Anywhere, it grew its headcount with a $444M deal in December 2024 to acquire @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate.
Anywhere, formerly called Realogy, is the parent company behind Coldwell Banker, Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty.
Compass agreed to pay $1.6B to take over Anywhere, with the latter’s shareholders controlling 22% of the combined firm, in a deal that was expected to close in the back half of 2026.
The deal was expected to attract regulatory scrutiny because of the ubiquity of Compass and Anywhere brands in similar markets. If they were combined in 2024, the two firms would have controlled 80% of transaction volume in Manhattan and 60% in San Francisco, according to an analysis by Capital Forum.
The Federal Trade Commission says in its merger guidelines that a combined market share above 30% can “indicate that a merger’s effect may be to eliminate substantial competition between the merging parties,” TRD reported.
But the merger was completed earlier this year when then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche scuttled any plan for an extended federal antitrust review after Mike Davis, a lawyer connected to President Donald Trump, was brought on by Compass to help close the deal, The Wall Street Journal reported in January.
Compass has tried to leverage its scale to create competitive advantage by encouraging sellers to list properties internally before putting them out on the wider market, a practice that has attracted criticism, with listings site Zillow arguing that the practice is keeping properties from attracting the most bids, WSJ reported.
The deal comes amid broader consolidation in residential and commercial brokerages and the broader real estate landscape. The tenant-focused commercial firm Cresa acquired Fischer, its largest direct competitor, in October in a merger that brought over all of Fischer’s 110 staff.
Consolidation has continued into this year, with London-based Savills reaching a $1.1B deal in March to absorb Eastdil Secured, which will continue operating as an independent company.
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