WAKE-UP CALL — I woke up this morning reading the following article in Vanessa Saunders’ Substack channel. Vanessa is one of my favorite contributors to The Data Advocate (TDA) — you can check out the Vanessa tag cloud on the right frame for access to her 10 TDA articles on a variety of real estate topics.
Usually I curate outside articles by highlighting key passages. In this case, I found myself highlighting the entire article. I envy her poetic writing skills, direct and to the point, nothing held back in true Welsh style. So, I called Vanessa back in New Hanpshire for permission to post her timely message.
Hope you enjoy reading Vanessa’s perspective on today’s real estate landscape.
The Velvet Rope Revolution: Exclusive Inventory & the Quiet Coup in Real Estate
“This isn’t a trend. It’s a takeover.”
In case you missed the memo — or were too busy actually serving clients — brokerages like Compass have been quietly rolling out what they call exclusive inventory. Sounds sexy, right? A little VIP, a little “you have to know someone,” a little secret club in a Soho basement.
Let me translate: it’s pre-marketing. A soft open. A controlled leak of your listing to a carefully curated pool of “in-the-know” insiders… all before your home hits the big, bad public MLS.
If this were the restaurant world, it’d be the chef’s tasting menu — minus the food safety inspection.
And I’ll be blunt (because I’m too old and too Welsh to mince words):
This is not about serving sellers. This is about controlling the marketplace.
The Recipe: One Part Data Grab, Two Parts Commission Grab
Compass (and they’re not alone) is dangling these exclusives like candy in front of agents. Why? Because it’s the ultimate bait:
- Control the listings
- Control the leads
- Control the money
Agents get the perk of off-market deals to dangle in front of buyers like forbidden fruit. Brokerages get to double-end more deals, sidestep the portals, and gradually tighten their grip on commission splits. According to the latest breakdown, a 1% shift in agent split adds $56 million to Compass’s coffers — while costing each agent only about $1,940. The math works beautifully. For Compass.
But for the public? For the seller? Well, that’s where the math breaks down. Or rather, breaks bad.
Who’s Really Winning Here?
Let’s say you’re a seller. You want top dollar. You want eyes on your property — lots of them. Competition. Visibility. Demand.
So what happens when your home is intentionally shown to a limited pool of buyers for two to three weeks — off MLS, off Zillow, off Realtor.com?
You may be told it’s a “strategic rollout.” What it really is? A containment field. You’re in a velvet-rope economy now, honey — where exposure is rationed and demand is curated.
And here’s the kicker:
94% of these so-called “exclusives” still end up on the MLS anyway. So what was the point?
Ah. That’s right. To capture the leads first. To own the buyer journey. To control both ends of the deal. And — oh yes — to ensure the brokerage benefits from every breadcrumb of the digital trail you leave behind.
The Blockchain That Wasn’t
When I first started banging the blockchain drum, I believed — truly — that the real estate industry wanted transparency, security, and efficiency. You know, the kind of things that might protect consumers instead of fleecing them with a smile and a branded water bottle.
But I was wrong.
This industry doesn’t want a better mousetrap. It wants to own the cheese factory.
And exclusive inventory? It’s not innovation — it’s consolidation in a silk suit.
But What About the Sellers Who “Opt In”?
Ah yes, choice. The perennial defense of every clever manipulation.
But let’s be honest: most sellers don’t fully understand what they’re opting into. They’re being sold exclusivity the way timeshares sell “lifestyle.” It sounds better than it performs.
Would most sellers still opt in if they knew:
- Their listing will get less initial exposure
- They may miss the best buyers in the earliest frenzy
- Their “exclusive” agent may be incentivized to find their own buyer before letting the wolves in
Choice is only valid when it’s informed. And in this case, it’s anything but.
The Real Danger
This isn’t just about Compass. This is about the entire architecture of real estate shifting beneath us. Slowly. Quietly. Like a gentrifying neighborhood, where one day you look around and realize the hardware store has been replaced by a boutique salt shop.
Brokerages, MLSs, portals, and NAR — every player has skin in this exclusivity game. It’s not about who’s right anymore. It’s about who controls the narrative.
And unless we speak up, unless we protect the public trust, we’re going to wake up one day in a marketplace that’s more about lead ownership than homeownership.
So What Now?
We need to call this what it is:
- Not pre-marketing. Preclusion.
- Not exclusive. Exclusionary.
- Not client-first. Brokerage-first.
We need ethics back in the conversation. We need MLSs that serve the public, not the power players. We need agents who understand that fiduciary duty isn’t optional — it’s the damn job.
And maybe — just maybe — we need more fire-breathing dragons who are willing to torch the velvet ropes before they strangle the market altogether.
Because this isn’t just a business model.
It’s a coup.
Quiet. Profitable. And absolutely real.
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