Compass’ plan to acquire Anywhere Real Estate for $1.6 billion would further consolidate the brokerages’ dominance in South Florida, where brands carry significant weight.
Compass, already a Goliath in residential real estate, will have more than 340,000 agents under its banner, representing about 20 percent of all Realtors in the country, if the acquisition is completed in the second half of next year. Still, Compass won’t control the majority of the market nationwide.
Yet, an analysis by The Real Deal shows the deal would cement the new Compass-owned company’s position as the top brokerage in Miami-Dade County. Combined, Compass and Anywhere’s brands closed $9.5 billion in on-market sales in Miami-Dade County in the 12 months ended in August, TRD research shows.
Compass, led by CEO Robert Reffkin, will control five of the top 10 performing brokerages in Miami-Dade. In addition to its own brand and Christie’s International Real Estate, which it bought last year in a $444 million purchase of @properties, the brokerage will own the legacy brands that include Coldwell Banker, the Corcoran Group, Sotheby’s International Realty, Century 21, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate and ERA.
Though the Anywhere brands will stay intact, Compass will absorb its fiercest competition in Miami-Dade: Coldwell Banker. With that comes the Jills Zeder Group, led by Jill Eber, Jill Hertzberg and Judy Zeder, which consistently ranks as the top agent team in the U.S. Last year, the Jills Zeder Group ranked first with $923 million in on-market sales, according to TRD research.
Among other top agents that will come under the new company’s umbrella are Corcoran’s Julian Johnston, Mick Duchon and Eloy Carmenate.
Compass and Anywhere agents represent about half of the top 25 agents in Miami-Dade, as determined by on-market sales volume in the 12 months ended in August. The agents’ combined dollar volume totaled $3.4 billion in on-market sales, according to TRD research.
Time will tell how the acquisition will affect recruiting, but it could drive away agents who are looking for a more personalized firm, some brokers say.
“You now have homogenized a bunch of brands under one brand,” said Mercedes Saewitz, senior vice president of operations at Aperture Global Real Estate, a Florida-based national brokerage firm. “You are sort of losing the identity of it.”
It’s still early, Saewitz said.
“People are digesting it, [but] there’s no rush of the gates. They’re not slated to close on this until Q2 2026,” she said. “I’m interested in seeing what the movement is from those brands into Compass.”
The deal will mark the latest chapter in the industry’s history of increased consolidation, as profit margins continue to shrink.
“It’s a high volume, low profit business,” said Mike Pappas, CEO of the Keyes Company, the largest independent brokerage firm in Florida. “Unless they’re going to transform the commission structure in their business, we don’t see how it’s going to be anything different than it’s historically been.”
Competitors, including smaller brokerages and local heavyweights, have already claimed the news as a win. Pappas sees opportunities to pick up people and office space post-merger, as the new Compass entity looks to cut $250 million in efficiencies.
Saewitz, who left Compass at the end of last year, said she always expected the brokerage would make a major acquisition, but not this big. “They just proved to the world that consolidation is the new normal for our industry,” she said.
Sheridan Wall contributed reporting.
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