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Ahead of Inman Connect New York, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services CEO Hoby Hanna mused on the Compass-Anywhere merger, consolidation and why he’s resolute in his fight against Clear Cooperation.

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Hoby Hanna won’t be bullied.

The past year for the Howard Hanna Real Estate Services CEO has been a rollercoaster. It has included the unveiling of the brokerage’s first rebrand in 40 years, several landmark market expansions, and a striking letter to the National Association of Realtors outlining why his company would no longer follow Clear Cooperation “as a matter of course.”

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Hanna’s decision also put him in Zillow’s crosshairs, with Inman’s deep dive into Zillow-Compass court documents revealing that Errol Samuelson and Jeremy Wacksman exchanged texts about the CEO, saying, “He has finally accepted the difficult news that we will require him to adhere to our listing standards.”

Howard “Hoby” Hanna IV

Hanna declined to comment directly on the lawsuit — “I’m not involved in it, and I don’t want to be,” he said — but was adamant that he would continue to do what’s best for Howard Hanna’s affiliates and the consumers they serve.

“I’ve made it very clear to Zillow that I don’t think they have the right to create a standard. I think they were being a bully,” he said. “And as I’ve said, the seller should still have a choice. As a company, we’re not trying to hide the ball.”

“But if our agents have a marketing strategy for somebody’s house and that seller doesn’t want their house on Zillow, they don’t want their house in the MLS, and they want to try to sell it privately, quietly, but through a brokerage network, that seller shouldn’t be penalized. That agent shouldn’t be penalized,” he added. “And that’s what I’ve told them. And I know in some of their comments, they think that they influence on a different level.”

“They’ll never influence me.”

Ahead of Inman Connect New York, Hanna spoke about mergers and acquisitions, consolidation, and what it means for brokers, agents, and consumers.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Inman: It’s nice to talk to you today. Let’s start with Inman Connect New York. What conversations are you looking forward to the most next week? How do you think those conversations will set the stage for the year ahead?

Hanna: When you reflect on ’25, obviously, we ended the year and then started ’26 with the big industry story of the major Compass-Anywhere acquisitions. So, I imagine there’s going to be a buzz on that. ‘What do you think about this? What’s that mean for the industry?’

I think that will be a major conversation. But there’s also the Rocket-Redfin deal, Mr. Cooper, and Keller Williams deciding to go from privately held to a private equity firm, investing and acquiring a stake.

And then, you know, just rumors of other consolidation. And not just consolidation from brokerage to brokerage, but among other players in the transaction process, like mortgage, title, and insurance. I think that’s the sort of future this industry is going toward.

It’s not just about the home sale transaction. It’s about the whole home-sale ecosystem and how you keep that client, that agent, and your company together. And then I’m sure that there’ll be buzz around the National Association, too.

Let’s start with the Compass-Anywhere merger. In October, you wrote an Inman op-ed about the challenge of leading through a merger. What do you think the biggest hurdles will be for Compass? Robert Reffkin said he intends to maintain all of the Anywhere brands’ independence, but I think there’s lingering skepticism on that promise?

It’s tough to integrate. You want to have a consistent message. And the unique thing about what Robert’s got ahead of them is that he’s grown with a singularity of the Compass brand. They’ve acquired companies, and those companies have decided that they believe in the Compass model and are willing to integrate into that.

Anywhere has Anywhere Advisors, their corporate operations. I guess you’re not going to integrate those. But then you’ve got, what, 70 percent of that is franchise with independently owned operators who might affiliate with the [Compass] brand, but they’re still vastly independent. Just because the brand is on their side doesn’t mean they have to use all the tools and technology.

So how do you build scale? How do you build culture? How do you integrate? I think that’s one of the challenges they have with running all those separate brands. How does the agent say, ‘Hey, I work for the same holding company, but I work for Compass, and I’m competing against Sotheby’s or competing against Corcoran?’

So I think there will be some challenges as they learn a new segment of the [real estate] business model. You have to show growth. You have to show scale. You have to show something that’s moving the dial for the shareholders to take the bet on you for the future. So I think that’s their challenge.

That aligns with the shift that’s taken place over the past few years. In the past, it seemed shareholders were OK with sacrificing profitability if it came with explosive growth. Now, not so much. It’ll be interesting to watch.

I agree. I agree. And I think it gives a company like ours a great opportunity to show that we can remain nimble, stick to our mission and vision, and attract other companies, agents, talent, and leadership who know there’s a clear direction at Howard Hanna. We think that plays well with us when we see a lot of this consolidation.

Consolidation… It’s a word I’ve heard a lot during my time at Inman. But 2025 was the year that it happened on a significant scale. What does all of this mean for agents? What does it mean for consumers? How might these landmark deals, such as the one between Compass and Anywhere, shift their experience?

First of all, on the agent side, there’s still a lot of choice for them. If they choose to be part of a franchise, the franchise networks are all there. If they want to be part of an independently owned and operated firm, that option is there. There are still many kinds of models.

However, from a broker’s perspective… if you’re big enough and you can really organize your data, that is going to be the game changer over the next three to five years. A lot of brokerage firms have done nothing with their data. It’s sort of stagnant. They don’t require their agents to use a platform that’s easy. With AI and propensity data and different forms of marketing, there’s going to be a big change.

We’re working on that right now with a lot of partners strategically on how we can distribute data, whether it be the listings to sort of create a more efficient marketplace to sell the house for the consumer in a faster fashion to buyers who are already approved, who are already looking in the market, and they’re ready to pull the trigger today.

So shortening days on market, creating an impact, and getting a greater price.

The same goes for the mortgage aspect. So I think that’s where consolidation makes a play.

In May, you spoke to Inman about your letter to NAR and their decision regarding Clear Cooperation. I zeroed in on a quote where you said it wasn’t about private or exclusive listings, but more about trade associations overstepping their power.

But since that interview, the conversation about the CCP has, for the most part, boiled down to private networks. Do you think people have lost the wider plot point? Where would you like the conversation on CCP to go this year?

That’s a great question. I started selling real estate in 1993, and I don’t remember there being anybody complaining about any form of efficiency of how the real estate market worked or the MLSs or distribution.

The MLS was always designed as a vehicle for brokers to decide when they wanted to share their inventory and to explain that to sellers. Nobody ever complained about whether you sold your listing in-house or not. There were rules with an MLS, and to participate in an MLS, but there weren’t any penalties.

… It wasn’t about exclusives or pocket listings. Sometimes you did sell internal deals quicker. That was just part of the process. It was part of why you joined the company. They had more listings or more market share. But there was reciprocity. When you put your listing in the MLS, and when you knew you were going to sell it, you had the same chance to sell a [co-brokered] listing as they did to sell yours.

I think where all that began to change, if we’re honest, is with the emergence of online and [the Internet Data Exchange]. The first IDX rules were put in place because there was a belief that it was unfair that a couple of brokers would share their data with each other.

You know, maybe the intention was right, but you took away the innovativeness and creativity of some brokers who were ahead of their game in sharing data with each other, but not with everybody in the MLS. And then you go into the portals, like Zillow and Realtor.com, emerging along the feeds. And the feeds for the MLSs and the brokerages became revenue for the MLSs.

And the brokerage community just didn’t pay attention because it was always just that B2B. They didn’t realize that the MLSs were gaining control over the data of the listings that they earned. And that was then driven by the NAR putting their IDX rules and data display, and MLS rules, and then Clear Cooperation… I just think it went too far.

I think that the dialogue should be, NAR, stay out of MLSs. MLSs, look at each local market and what’s best for your membership, and let the local boards make a decision. It’s not about exclusives to me. It’s, don’t put handcuffs on the way somebody could creatively market or distribute properties.

What about the argument about fair housing and discrimination? That CCP helps maintain market transparency and fairness?

The MLS isn’t, as last I checked, a public utility. If they make it one, then everybody has to be there. But I don’t know that it’s hurting anybody to be able to go to multiple websites to look for what they want.

And I’m not even sure, just because everything’s at Zillow, Zillow is not a public utility. They monetize those listings, and they sell them back. And now we’re seeing that they’re [allegedly] getting kickbacks on mortgage and other operations. I can’t say, ‘Here are these leads, but you have to use our mortgage company.’ It’s a RESPA violation. We’ve been under that scrutiny, but I guess online portals haven’t been.

So what happens to their market if they don’t have all the listings?… I just think that dialogue should be, ‘Let some creativity take place in the marketplace. Let innovation take place.’

Email Marian McPherson

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