Is there someone in your life that is critical of you? While sometimes this can be annoying or depressing, often those who volunteer tough criticism of you can offer pearls of wisdom and tell you things about you that others are too shy to say out loud that you may need to hear! Yes, we wish they would say it privately and elegantly, in a constructive manner that maintains dignity and showcases caring rather than scolding, but I digress!

A local New York appraiser and vocal critic of Compass since its inception over 10 years ago (Jonathan Miller), recently wrote an op-ed on his blog berating our desire to end the ridiculous aspects of Clear Cooperation that compel home sellers to instantly mass-broadcast their listings thereby accruing days on market, while this rule is not applied evenly. His argument was that this is a desperate attempt for Compass to get 'all sides of the deal' by hiding data and information.

While many would have viewed this as a rough attack, especially on a brokerage whose agents are extremely supportive of Mr. Miller's appraisal services and don't critique them publicly, we saw it as a gift. It highlighted the fact that we needed to message loudly and clearly that None of this information we are allegedly 'hiding' is hidden at all. The reality is that all this information about our 'Coming Soon' listings is very publicly displayed on compass.com, accessible to all. It is 100% not 'hidden'. We are messaging this boldly and loudly everywhere. So thanks, Jonathan, for another opportunity to message just that!

I was somewhat surprised that Jonathan never mentions in any of his critiques of Compass that while he is in fact an "independent source", he is also the writer/creator of a competing brokerage, Douglas Elliman's, multiple reports. Mr. Miller has been writing their quarterly, annual reports for decades. He often speaks on behalf of - and at - Douglas Elliman. They may be one of his most valued clients. They also happen to sell billions of new developments around the US where most developers, wisely, are not obliged to abide by the Clear Cooperation policy (listing their inventory widely, market them in any way prior to listing, show days on market, hold back shadow inventory, etc).

In short, Mr. Miller never mentions that one of his valuable clients practices exactly that which he denounces of Compass. Even though Compass, unlike most developers, actually does display all the Coming Soon listing information on compass.com. I wonder why.

Offering constructive critique is useful, but does this critique have another, purposeful agenda?