The Fierce Battle to Control How Americans Buy and Sell Their Homes

Mega-brokerage Compass is taking more listings offline, sparking backlash from rivals who say the practice is upending decades of market transparency Social-media battles. A cease and desist. Lawsuits and threats. The real-estate industry is tearing itself apart over a question that home buyers haven’t had to ask in decades: When you search for a home online, are you actually seeing every property for sale? For the better part of two decades, the answer to that question has largely been yes, with the vast majority of listings available on sites like Zillow and Trulia. But Compass—now the nation’s largest brokerage—is changing...