Private Exclusives Serve Brokers, Not Sellers — And One Top Agent Is Saying It Plainly

Jason Oppenheim, founder of the Oppenheim Group, went on record this week with a pointed assessment of Compass and its private exclusives program — and his concern isn't about market share. It's about who controls the rules sellers have to play by.

In an interview with Inman ahead of Inman Luxury Connect in San Diego, Oppenheim laid out a straightforward argument: the danger of Compass' consolidation strategy isn't the size of its agent roster. It's the policy influence that comes with that size. As he put it, a brokerage that large gains real weight in shaping industry rules — and those rules, he contends, tend to get shaped in the brokerage's favor, not the seller's.

What the Private Exclusives Program Actually Does — and Who It Actually Helps

Compass' private exclusives program lets listings circulate inside the Compass agent network before they reach the MLS. The company has pitched it as a premium, discreet option for sellers who want limited exposure before going public.

Oppenheim's criticism is blunt: the program may be genuinely appropriate for roughly 1 to 2 percent of sellers — those in truly unusual circumstances where privacy or timing makes a quiet pre-market period worthwhile. But Compass, he says, pitches it to nearly every seller. The gap between who it actually helps and who gets sold on it is the core problem.

He also noted something that undercuts the program's logic entirely: he estimates that about 97 percent of Compass listings that start as private exclusives eventually land on the MLS anyway. If nearly all of them end up publicly listed, the pre-market period isn't protecting the seller's interests. It's giving the listing agent's brokerage first crack at finding a buyer internally — which means the brokerage benefits from double-ending the deal, and the seller may miss out on broader competition that could drive up the price.

The bottom line, in Oppenheim's framing: sellers are being recommended a strategy that primarily benefits their agent and that agent's broker. That's a conflict of interest dressed up as a service.

The Bigger Risk: What Happens If This Strategy Scales

Oppenheim's concern doesn't stop at the listing level. He described a longer-term scenario where Compass, having consolidated enough market share and built a large enough private inventory network, could reach a point where buyers need to work with a Compass agent to access Compass listings at all. That kind of closed-loop inventory control would be a fundamental shift in how real estate markets function — and he said flatly that he doesn't see how it wouldn't trigger a class action lawsuit.

That's not idle speculation. Zillow filed suit last week against a Chicago-area MLS over listing access — a case Oppenheim sees as a direct reaction to the same inventory-control dynamic playing out across the industry. The pattern is consistent: when large platforms or brokerages restrict who can see what listings and when, litigation tends to follow.

Oppenheim called the overall moment a race to the bottom, with major portals and large brokerages each maneuvering to control inventory in ways that, in his view, hurt both buyers and sellers over time.

What This Means If You're Planning to Sell

If you're interviewing agents or receiving a listing pitch that includes a private exclusive phase, here is what you should ask — and understand — before agreeing to anything.

• Ask what percentage of homes in your price range sell during the pre-market period. If the honest answer is a small fraction, that's Oppenheim's point in practice: the odds are against you recouping value from a restricted launch.
• Understand the conflict of interest. When a listing stays inside one brokerage's network, that brokerage has an incentive to find its own buyer and collect both sides of the commission. That's not automatically illegal or even unusual, but it should be disclosed and weighed against your goal of maximizing sale price through open competition.
• Know that maximum exposure almost always produces maximum price. The MLS exists because broad buyer access creates competition. Competition creates price. A private exclusive delays that process. For most sellers in most markets, that delay costs money.
• Get clarity on the timeline. If an agent is proposing a private phase, ask exactly how long it lasts and what triggers the public listing. Vague answers are a red flag.

Oppenheim is specifically talking about the luxury segment — the Oppenheim Group operates in Newport Beach, San Diego, and Los Angeles — but the underlying logic applies at every price point. A listing strategy that keeps your home hidden from most buyers is only a good idea in very narrow circumstances. If your agent can't tell you precisely why you're one of those circumstances, you probably aren't.

The Los Angeles Market Is a Separate Problem Sellers Should Watch

Separate from the policy argument, Oppenheim gave a candid read on the current luxury market. Newport Beach and San Diego are active. Los Angeles is not.

The culprit, in his assessment, is Measure ULA — the city's transfer tax commonly called the mansion tax — which applies to sales above $5.3 million. He said transactions in that range have run below 30 per month for most of the past year. Before the tax took effect, the comparable figure was 60 to 70 transactions per month. That's roughly a 50 percent decline in high-end deal volume in Los Angeles.

For sellers in Los Angeles at or above that threshold, this is a live constraint. The buyer pool is thinner, and pricing strategy has to account for the tax's effect on buyer willingness to transact. Sellers in that range should factor the tax drag into their net proceeds calculations before listing.

If you want a baseline on what your home might bring in the current market — with no commitment required — Local Home Buyers USA's instant-offer tool gives you a real number to anchor your planning.