Compass is partially funded by SoftBank, but the rest is not true -- there's a whole lot of tech behind it (source: I used to work there as a software engineer). It's mostly tools for agents, and some tools for consumers. They pull in dozens of real estate feeds, normalize and index them and make them searchable; they have a decent app for agents to keep track of listings and contacts; they have a marketing tool that allows agents to produce nice brochures of their listings; they have some newer tools to allow creating videos from photos with one click; and lots more.
I've been a Compass client for several yrs and have generated ~$100m of the "Gross Transaction Value" they crow about in their S-1 (bs metric to focus on, since Compass only earns commissions of 3~5% of that). Most of the tech they promised in their initial pitch either doesn't exist or is outsourced to third-parties. Even basic services such as marketing/SEO in our market is handled by 3Ps. From a client POV, nothing differentiates them from other major brokerages. At the end of the day, RE is a people biz; I've stuck with them because I like the agents we work with. If these agents were to jump ship, I'd leave as well.
It’s a tech enabled brokerage but not a tech company. It’s a services company. The technology ingesting a bunch of IDX feeds and making them searchable is decades old functionality that literally every large brokerage in the country has. Redfin is far ahead in the agent technology space and operates far more effectively. If they classify as a technology company then so does every competing brokerage in the space (Keller Williams, Coldwell Banker, etc)
Keller Williams was the Compass of the 2000s, has more robust technology, more market power, and 10x more agents. They are closing 100s of billions in gross sales each year. Compass can’t touch them or their model.
That's my guess at where real disruptive $ could be; actually vertically integrate and originate loans + sleeker/lower fee real estate transaction. If they corner enough inventory they could probably eliminate many human agents too
I said this elsewhere in this thread, and I’ll say it again here: what you’re describing is Redfin. They’ve been originating loans for a couple years now, and creating that efficient vertical integration.
Zillow does this at greater scale than Redfin. Coldwell Banker also has an affiliated loan arm of their business (Princeton Capital). The difference is that Redfin is a broker whereas Zillow is not. Zillow has 20x the traffic and reach of Redfin plus the originate mortgages and provide instant offers. Because Redfin and Compass are brokers, they have more legal restrictions on how they offer these services to others that limits their reach