Who Controls Pre-Market Listings in Real Estate & Who Should Care

KEY TAKEAWAY: Pre-market listings control is a business model competition over who captures buyer leads before a property reaches the MLS. Compass, Zillow, and eXp each designed different structures to serve different interests. The debate is structural, not primarily a compliance question.

TL;DR About Pre-Market Listings Control

• Pre-market listings give sellers exposure before MLS submission.
• The Clear Cooperation Policy required MLS submission within one business day.
• Office exclusives and the delayed marketing exemption create two seller-consent paths.
• Compass, Zillow, and eXp each built different lead-capture structures.
• Compass sued Zillow in June 2025; the lawsuit was dismissed in March 2026.
• The Rocket-Redfin deal gave Compass a distribution alternative to Zillow.
• Agents should confirm who receives buyer leads from their pre-market listings.

A pre-market listing is a property made available for sale before it appears in the Multiple Listing Service, accessible only through specific brokerage channels or pre-market platforms. Whoever controls access to a pre-market listing also controls which agents and buyers can engage with it, and therefore who captures the buyer lead.

One misconception is that the pre-market listing debate is primarily about NAR rules or MLS compliance. The compliance framework sets the boundaries within which each player operates. The competition is about which player captures buyer leads generated by a listing before it reaches the open market.

The following sections explain what pre-market listings are, how the Clear Cooperation Policy worked, the two seller-consent structures under current NAR rules, how each major player positioned itself, and how the Zillow-Compass conflict started and resolved:

What Pre-Market Listings Are and Why Control Over Them Matters

A pre-market listing is a property made available for sale before MLS submission. Access is limited to the channels the controlling party permits. An MLS is a Multiple Listing Service, a shared database where licensed agents list properties for sale. Properties in the MLS are visible to all member agents and, through syndication, to public listing websites such as Zillow, Realtor.com, and Redfin.

Control over pre-market listings matters because a listing generates buyer interest at first exposure. The party controlling access also determines where buyer contact information goes when a buyer expresses interest. Capturing buyer leads from a listing before MLS submission is a significant business model advantage for the party holding that access control.

How the Clear Cooperation Policy Worked and How Compass Worked Around It

The Clear Cooperation Policy required listing agents to submit a listing to the MLS within one business day of any public marketing. NAR adopted it in November 2019 to prevent brokerages from keeping listings within internal networks to capture both buyer and seller commissions before other agents could access the listing.

Compass structured its pre-market approach around the office exclusive exemption. By marketing listings internally as office exclusives, accessible only to Compass agents and their buyer clients, Compass could keep a listing off the MLS during the pre-market phase without triggering the CCP submission requirement. No public marketing meant no submission trigger.

Learn more about the explanation of the Clear Cooperation Policy and the office exclusive exemption.

The Two Seller-Consent Structures: Office Exclusives and the Delayed Marketing Exemption

An office exclusive listing is marketed only within a single brokerage’s internal network. It is not submitted to the MLS. Buyers who want to see it must work with an agent from the brokerage holding the listing. The office exclusive exemption under the original CCP allowed this as long as no public marketing occurred.

The delayed marketing exemption is a provision NAR adopted on March 25, 2025, as part of the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy. It allows a seller to authorize their listing agent to delay MLS submission for a period set by the local MLS. The seller must provide written consent through a signed disclosure. The MLS determines the maximum delay period, including setting it to zero days. Full MLS implementation was required by September 30, 2025.

The two structures differ in three ways. The delayed marketing exemption requires written seller consent and documentation; the original office exclusive did not specify this. The delayed marketing exemption has a time limit set by the local MLS; the office exclusive did not. The delayed marketing exemption is filed with the MLS upon execution; the office exclusive was not filed during the pre-market period.

Here’s NAR’s official announcement of the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy.

How Each Major Player Positioned Itself: Compass, Zillow, and eXp

Compass built its pre-market position around a three-phased marketing strategy: Private status (off-MLS, Compass network only), Coming Soon (broader exposure before MLS), then MLS-active. Compass agents capture buyer leads before the listing reaches the broader market.

Zillow built its pre-market position around Zillow Preview, which launched with participating brokerages in March 2026. Zillow Preview routes buyer engagement through two buttons. Contact Agent routes the buyer to the listing agent. Schedule Tour routes the buyer to the Zillow Preferred Agent network, a paid program through which select buyer’s agents receive leads generated by buyer activity on Zillow.

eXp built its pre-market position around multi-portal syndication through its Coming Soon designation. eXp Coming Soon syndicates a listing across Realtor.com, Homes.com, and ComeHome.com simultaneously before MLS submission. No single portal receives preferential access. How each portal handles buyer inquiries on pre-market listings has not been fully disclosed as of this writing.

Read more about the Compass-Rocket-Redfin partnership announcement and each player’s pre-market positioning.

How the Zillow-Compass Conflict Started and How It Resolved

In April 2025, Zillow announced Listing Access Standards which barred listings from appearing on Zillow if those listings were publicly marketed but not broadly shared through the MLS and IDX within 24 hours of being marketed. Compass’s office exclusive and three-phased marketing strategy was structurally incompatible with those standards. Compass sued Zillow in June 2025, alleging antitrust violations.

A federal judge denied Compass’s request for a preliminary injunction in February 2026, ruling that Compass had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits. In late February 2026, Compass announced a three-year partnership with Rocket Companies, Redfin’s parent company, to display Compass Coming Soon and Private Exclusive listings on Redfin.com.

On March 17, 2026, Zillow updated its Listing Access Standards to focus on whether a listing is broadly publicly accessible rather than on MLS submission timing. A listing displayed on a public-facing portal such as Redfin meets the updated standard. A listing gated behind a private brokerage network does not. Compass dismissed its antitrust lawsuit the following day, without prejudice.

Why Pre-Market Listing Control Matters for Working Agents

A common misunderstanding is that the pre-market listing debate is primarily a compliance question. The compliance framework sets the boundaries. The competition occurs within those boundaries and is about which party captures the buyer lead at first contact with the listing.

A brokerage’s pre-market structure determines which agent receives the buyer lead when a buyer first engages with a listing. At a brokerage using an office exclusive structure, buyer leads go to agents within that brokerage’s network. At a brokerage using Zillow’s two-button lead routing platform, one button routes leads away from the listing agent entirely.

Broad pre-market exposure does not mean the listing agent receives buyer contact from all buyer interactions. Lead routing is determined by the pre-market structure, not by exposure volume.

What Agents Should Evaluate About Their Brokerage Pre-Market Position

Agents evaluating a brokerage’s pre-market structure may want to assess three questions. First, what is the brokerage’s position on office exclusives and the delayed marketing exemption, and what does that mean for which buyers can access the listing? Second, when a buyer engages with a pre-market listing, who receives the buyer lead: the listing agent, the brokerage, or a third-party network? Third, does the syndication approach concentrate listing access or distribute it across multiple channels?

Each structural design reflects a different answer to the question of who the pre-market system is designed to serve: the listing agent, the brokerage, the platform, or some combination.

What Agents Also Ask About Pre-Market Listings Control

What is an office exclusive listing?

An office exclusive listing is a property shared only within a single brokerage’s internal agent network, not submitted to the MLS. Under the original Clear Cooperation Policy, it was exempt from the one-business-day submission requirement as long as no public marketing occurred including not advertising that the gated list exists and buyers who want to see it must work with an agent from the brokerage holding the listing.

How does the delayed marketing exemption work?

The delayed marketing exemption allows a seller to authorize their listing agent to delay MLS submission for a period set by the local MLS. The seller must provide written consent before the delay begins. During the delay, the listing is not distributed through MLS, IDX, or syndication feeds. The local MLS determines the maximum delay period, including the option to set it to zero days.

How is Zillow Preview different from a standard MLS listing?

Zillow Preview allows a listing to appear on Zillow and Trulia before MLS submission, within the delay period permitted by applicable exemptions. A standard active MLS listing is distributed to all MLS participants and syndicated simultaneously. A Coming Soon MLS listing may be syndicated later based on the MLS’s rules. On a Zillow Preview listing, buyer engagement is split: Contact Agent routes the buyer to the listing agent, and Schedule Tour routes the buyer to the Zillow Preferred Agent network.

What happened between Zillow and Compass over listing access?

In April 2025, Zillow announced Listing Access Standards barred listings from appearing on Zillow if those listings were publicly marketed but not broadly shared through the MLS and IDX within 24 hours of being marketed. Compass sued Zillow in June 2025 for antitrust violations. A federal judge denied Compass’s injunction request in February 2026. Compass announced a Rocket-Redfin distribution deal in late February 2026. Zillow updated its standards on March 17, 2026, and Compass dismissed the lawsuit the following day.

Why This Matters Before You Join eXp Realty

The competition over pre-market listing control is a structural question about which party captures buyer leads at first contact with a listing. A brokerage’s pre-market position determines how listing-generated buyer leads are routed, separate from the broader set of compensation, technology, and support factors that define an agent’s brokerage experience.

At eXp Realty, all agents receive the same core brokerage platform, including compliance, compensation, and access to company divisions. What differs is the sponsor ecosystem an agent aligns with. The sponsor an agent selects shapes which tools, training, and attraction systems they have access to, including how pre-market listing structures and lead routing decisions are positioned within the platform.

Understanding how pre-market listings control fits into brokerage business model competition helps agents evaluate pre-market structures as design decisions rather than compliance positions.