A Concise History of Compass Real Estate
One of the largest and most innovative real estate brokerages in the country is Compass Real Estate. This company has been disrupting the real estate industry since it was founded in 2012, and it looks like it will continue this trend well into the future. Now worth several billion dollars, Compass has reached incredible success over the past decade, which displays the power of Compass’s innovative and technology-driven approach. But how did Compass become this successful? How did the company begin? Read on to find out more about the history of Compass Real Estate.

Compass Real Estate was founded in New York in 2012 by Robert Reffkin and Ori Allon. The company’s name was originally Urban Compass, and it focused specifically on renting within New York City. Reffkin and Allon had a vision of disrupting the real estate industry (and especially the process of renting) in New York. They saw the industry as dishonest and difficult to navigate, with many fake listings being posted online and apartments being snapped up incredibly quickly. To find out more, read this comprehensive upnest article on Compass.
In the beginning, Compass went against the standard real estate company model by paying its agents a salary rather than taking a percentage of their sales commissions. This established Compass’s reputation as a very different real estate company. Due to their creative vision, Reffkin and Allon secured a lot of funding from large investors to start this business, including Goldman Sachs.
However, in 2014, Compass changed the way it operates by switching from salaries to commissions. This was in response to feedback from real estate agents, who often prefer to have independence by earning commission instead of a salary. This structural change resulted in more investment for the company – around $40 million, to be exact.
What makes Compass stand out is its commitment to using technology to improve the real estate industry. Compass develops software, including a proprietary mobile app, to help real estate agents assist clients. This software can give agents information about the real estate market and help them make decisions about when to buy and sell. Compass also offers a variety of services, such as Compass Concierge, to help clients with their buying and selling journeys.
Nowadays, Compass Real Estate is a multi-billion dollar company that operates across the country in locations such as Seattle, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta, and many more. Compass has won many awards for its rapid success, including Manhattan Chamber of Commerce’s Mid-Sized Business of the Year in 2015 and Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators in 2019.
After the coronavirus pandemic, it will be interesting to see how Compass Real Estate adapts to the ‘new normal’ and continues to grow into the future. Currently, Compass is still expanding by hiring new real estate agents for a wide variety of regions and new software developers to create real estate software. It’s certainly clear that Compass is at the forefront of innovation and development within this industry.