They swept through all the big markets a couple years ago and got all the top-selling agents by offering amazing packages. My brother was a top agent in Austin and he got stock, excellent brokerage rates, a lucrative bonus program and a huge stipend for marketing, branding and even 40k toward hiring an assistant. It was an offer no other brokerage could match and he and basically everyone he knew went to Compass.
Some of these top brokers have already started to bail. They've also cut back on their Compass Concierge service, which is just an interest-free loan for sellers to dress up their homes. Guess all that Softbank cash is starting to run out...
Actually, I can tell you that their original strategy was to have exclusive listings. Last year because Compass had so many agents, they were able to "preview" listings on their site days before MLS. Their hope was that this edge would attract users into using Compass to search for listings over RedFin/Zillow/etc. Fortunately, this practice was banned and they no longer have that card to play.
basically "we have a culture that the big agents can't and that attracts the best agents to us" so basically culture + back-end not horrible tech = massive success.
They swept through all the big markets a couple years ago and got all the top-selling agents by offering amazing packages. My brother was a top agent in Austin and he got stock, excellent brokerage rates, a lucrative bonus program and a huge stipend for marketing, branding and even 40k toward hiring an assistant. It was an offer no other brokerage could match and he and basically everyone he knew went to Compass.