Deposition Desperation

Compass wants answers, Zillow wants silence

Splits and Caps Daily: Action for Agents

September 15, 2025

📈 Market Move:

Private Plans

The Zillow–Compass courtroom drama just got spicier. Compass wants to grill Zillow co-founder Lloyd Frink under oath, claiming he’s got insider knowledge about Zillow’s private listing ban. Zillow’s response? “Nah, you’ve already dragged three of our execs through depositions—this is just harassment.”

But the filings dropped a juicy nugget: before Zillow went nuclear on private listings, they actually tried to cut a big, national partnership deal with Compass. Translation: Zillow wasn’t just banning—it was bargaining. Also, buried in the docs? A redacted playbook called “Post Clear Cooperation Strategy,” which sounds like Zillow’s secret plan for a world where NAR’s rules crumble.

So yeah, forget the courtroom theater—this is really about who controls the next era of listings, and both sides are playing chess while pretending it’s checkers.

🌟Quote of the Day:

“If you double the number of experiments you do each year, you’re going to double your inventiveness.” — Jeff Bezos

📊🤔 Agent Poll Results

On 9/12, we asked: Mortgage rates just dropped like a hot potato. Buyers are sniffing around again. Question is: what’s your move?

The results are in!

  • 🏃‍♂️ Double down on buyers before the herd shows up: 0%

  • 🏡 Focus on listings—sellers suddenly have leverage again: 100%

  • 🤷 Sit tight, this is just noise: 0%

  • 🍹 Ignore it all and hope the Fed brings piña coladas next: 0%

Game plan: Activate!

🎉 Fun Fact of the Day: 

Porcelain Property: 🚽 In San Francisco, someone once listed a tiny patch of land with a single toilet… and buyers actually fought over it.

📚 Book Recommendation:

“Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” by Chip Heath & Dan Heath — Changing stuff—whether it’s your habits, your team, or your whole business—is way harder than it sounds. Most of us know what we should do, but we can’t get our brains, our emotions, and our environment to line up. That’s where Switch comes in.

The Heath brothers basically hand you the cheat codes for making change stick. They show you how to get both the “rational rider” (your logic) and the “emotional elephant” (your feelings) moving in the same direction—and then clear the path so you don’t stumble.

If you’ve ever tried to overhaul your routines, motivate agents, or just convince yourself to stop doomscrolling at 1am… this book will hit. It’s not fluffy theory—it’s stories + frameworks that actually work.

Bottom line: Switch is about turning “I should do this” into “I actually did this.” And once you learn that skill, you can bend reality a little closer to the life you actually want.

Progress feels slow until it suddenly feels unstoppable.

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