From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's The Tom and Mickey Show. Everything to showcase. Lights, camera, action, presenting Robert Reffkin: My Favorite Things. Today's episode is an interview with Robert Reffkin, the founder and CEO of Compass, our new home. Not new anymore.
Well, not new. Yeah, we're in our second year now. Just barely into our second year. But Robert is a great guy. He's ridiculously smart.
He was born on the same day as you.
That is true. We're both Geminis, June 7th.
June 7th. Also Dean Martin's birthday, Prince.
Mhm, it's a good day. Yeah. Okay. Uh, but we digress.
Well, we always digress. That's what we do. The show should have been called Tom and Mickey Digress.
Tom and Mickey, we digress. Stay on topic.
Drum roll. It doesn't make it nice. What is your preferred entrance music?
We want to start by saying we joined this company, it was just a year. We are super thrilled to have made the decision that we did. We've watched the trajectory of Compass and we say congratulations to you.
Congratulations. We are thrilled to be here. And what we want to start with is to thank you for having us ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange for our one-year anniversary. I mean, to set all of that up just for—I mean, that was just—
Just for you. Exactly. I mean, I thought there would be candles or something, but that was definitely a special moment. I think for people that have been here in just a year, I have so many great memories with you. I remember when you came over to my house, we had Shabbat dinner and you were both singing by the piano and my family was around. It was such a wonderful moment.
That was pretty special. I mean, we will say we've been to many a Shabbat dinner, and that really took the cake.
That was fun. It was fabulous. I can't remember the last one we sang at.
That's true. You never sang, as you noticed. We were very shy.
It was you. It was you who said, "Hey guys, this is—" The evening was kind of wrapping up, you know, everybody getting ready to go.
But you can also be very persuasive because I remember you recording it like, "Can I post it? Can I post it? Can I post it? Let me post it." You're like, "Okay."
All right. Well, thank you for giving me permission to do so.
Of course. Yes. That was a great night.
Well, how does this all work? How does this work?
Yeah, we have decided that since we had the very first TV show on real estate, which was Selling New York on HGTV, and we look at how that has now, what I'd say, devolved into, let's just say something other.
We decided that we have a voice and we're surrounded by pretty wonderful people in our life: our friends, our show business friends, our business friends, and clients. And that's what this is.
That's what this is. And I think another component of that too is many people think of real estate as numbers and percentages, and it's very transactional. And of course, it's transactional by nature because it's contractual, but it's also very emotional compared to commercial real estate, let's say. And we like digging into people's stories and finding out what makes them tick. We love getting real estate stories from people whether they're in the business or not in the business, because one thing you can get out of anybody, and everybody has lived somewhere at some time in their lives, so you can always get a great real estate story out of them.
I love that. Everybody's got a real estate story.
So do you want to tell us your favorite one? Your favorite personal transaction?
My favorite transaction is one that I have not done yet. So I grew up in a house in Berkeley, 1937 Carlton Street, and my favorite memories were in that house. My mom, I think, bought it with a group of people for around $10,000 or $20,000, and then she sold it for a lot more because she bought it before I was born and sold it later. And you know what happened to Berkeley, California. But I have this dream of buying that place again and just experiencing that life again with my family. So I have not transacted yet, but at some point I would love to. It would make me so happy to have that home again.
Wow, that's wonderful. Does the current owner know that?
No, I think I said that once before, and then an agent reached out to the owner on my behalf, but no, nothing happened.
Okay. Well, now we just put it out into the universe, so maybe they'll do it.
Exactly. Subconsciously, that's why I've always said it.
And we were talking too about—you mentioned your mom, and that's a great place to start because your mom was an agent. What we've heard, and please elaborate, but one of the reasons you started Compass was to find a better way for agents because the business as a whole is very archaic and really needed a lift. But people sort of—it took us a long time to get here. It's easier to muddle in the rut than to elevate and see the possibilities. And our eyes have been wide open for the past year. And so—
Do you like MakeMeSell? Have you seen it yet?
We're getting into it. Every day there's a new thing to learn.
We're just a little bit older than you, but we have Jen and we're keeping up. And we love when you pop by and kind of share the next great thing with us, like, "What do you think of this, guys?"
Something just came out. You want to see it? Can I show it here?
Yeah. Are you allowed to?
Yeah, sure. Here, let me show you. The pins on the map you saw for active listings were all green, orange for in contract, red for sold. We said, how about we differentiate the Compass ones from everyone else and make them black pins really to show the reach that we have in these different markets? And so now it looks like that.
Wow. Right. There's a lot of black pins there. A lot of black.
Are we getting that? What is this called now?
This is just anytime you search, you're going to see a lot of black pins. That's what it's called.
So we can just cut right to the chase: your goal is world domination.
No, no, no. So, I'm glad you brought that up. One of the things that makes me sad is when you hear agents at other companies say things that are negative about our company, our people, our motivations maybe. And so you brought up my mom. My mom was a single mother. She was disowned by her parents for having an interracial relationship. My father was Black, and so she raised me by herself. She was born in Israel, moved here when she was seven, went to Ramaz in New York. And I share that because she had nothing, right? She was not the kind of person that just had people flock to help her. She was in Berkeley and had nothing and no resources. And what she did is she didn't give up. She created a preschool in our house called the Unicorn Preschool so she could take care of me and make money at the same time.
Then she went to the Jewish Community Center where in kindergarten I could go there and she could make money and take care of me at the same time. So she worked there. Then a woman named Michael Craft at New York Life Insurance said, "All these Jews and parents who just had kids, you should sell them life insurance." So she became a life insurance agent for the next 10 or so years and then became a real estate agent for the majority of my life. And so for my entire life, I saw her as someone who is an entrepreneur just like you, who dreams big and says every year, "This is my best year," who never gives up.
She's 79 years old. She's an agent today, having the best year of her career and launching a new division in Compass called Compass Plus that helps seniors move into their last home and sell their last home. And so I am inspired. I did not expect to fall in love with real estate agents.
They're a little rough to fall in love with, a lot of them.
Yeah. But I think it's almost like a spiritual belief that you could change your stars, that you can make anything possible. That's why I like Rocky, which we talked about earlier, and it's so core to how I want to wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. And whenever bad things happen, I try to think about, "Well, the good news is..." I've done it my entire life. Whenever something bad happens: "Well, the good news is..." and you're going to think of a dream that's going to make everything great.
And so, all I want for this industry is I want agents to be rock stars. I know how hard you work. I know all the sacrifices you make. I know for every one transaction there's 90 no's, and I know you go above and beyond every day for your clients. I know you love your clients, and I want the world to see you the way I see you, and I want you to have everything that you want for yourselves and your clients. So that's what Compass is. And so when I see agents at different companies say, "Oh, Compass," I'm like, "All we want is for you all to be amazing and have everything you want."
And we really do at this—I mean, we're doing this collectively for over 40 years between the two of us. Got some good gray hair going on. Silver. Silver.
And we've been around, and this company is really phenomenal. What we have witnessed just in our one year and a few weeks now, every day it challenges us to continue to grow and learn. But the tools are really impressive. And we've talked about for many years before we got here the technology, the technology, the technology. It's astounding, the technology. And the clients have really reacted to it in terms of just being on the Compass One platform, which was the official launch day at the Stock Exchange on our one-year anniversary, of course.
The clients just love to be in there. It's as if we're texting with them all day, but it's attached to the listing: "I want to see this," and "This just came on the market," and "This is a Compass Private Exclusive." It's just great. It's great.
These MLS and NAR rules, this stuff that is all in the market, Clear Cooperation, the unintended consequence of their rules are you all look the same.
Your name's not on your listing. You all market the exact same day. Everything goes on immediately. There's no differentiation, or there's much less differentiation than there would be otherwise. And philosophically, I want you to all look different. Our logo is black and white for a reason. We wanted you to be the color, you to be the star, not the company. We wanted your listing to stand out. We created lifestyle photography. We created logos for you because we wanted you to stand out.
That's phenomenal. It's such a different approach than other companies. And before we came to Compass, we realized this was probably the only other place we could go that would not just be a blanket over our brand, but would support it and elevate it. And we found there are a lot of other brands—good brands, I'm not saying they're not great companies, but they really do expect their agents to toe the company line and just conform.
"Conform" is not a word—
"Conform," that's a bad word.
Not around these parts. We concur.
On a personal note, I wanted to touch on something you said too: that you appreciate what we do, and you realize for every high five there are 90 gut punches, and that's the nature of the business. We, as agents and as brokers, have been under attack. The value we add to a transaction has been under attack. We read comments in all the major publications, reader comments about that we're door openers and part-time failures in other components in our lives. And then you have other people getting into the business who are watching all these TV shows, and they think it's just that much easier. And of course, that's why people have this perception, because it's like, "Oh, potential commission $1.9 million," and 12 minutes later all the apartments are sold and they're driving around in a Rolls-Royce.
And I have a story similar to yours. My mom was a single mom. My dad was out of the picture for most of my life, but she was very entrepreneurial and she was a real estate agent. And her one big break, we lived on Long Island, and she got a large new development to sell. She was on that project for years with the promise of—because in this business we don't make any money until everything closes. Several years into it, the developer went bankrupt and she got paid nothing. I remember how hard that was for us, the financial strain, because it was always like, "It's right around the corner. The closings are going to start. It's going to happen." And that was my introduction to the real estate business. Like, this is no get-rich-quick scheme. It is long, crazy hours. It is hard work. It is constantly reinventing.
My freshman year of college, that summer I was looking to get a job and my mom said, "Get your real estate license." I said, "I don't know. Who wants to hire me? I'm 19 years old." She said, "We'll find somebody who wants to hire you." Having that memory of the difficulty, not the glamour of the business, and looking to sort of start as this scrappy, slightly pimply kid who had this amazing broker, old school—I was the one who set up the first computer in the office. Back then the real estate listings would come in like a phone book-sized tome that they'd throw, and you'd comb through these little black and white grainy photos and circle things for your clients.
It was very different, but obviously it stuck with me because years later after I went through all my other life pursuits, I came back to it. And it's sort of like it was meant to be. And I really think it's about the excitement of every day having a new adventure, the beauty of what we do. We get to look at beautiful architecture. We get to help people settle their lives. Whether it's a joyful thing—sometimes people just need to close the chapter and move on. But we're a part of that story, and that's why we're so attached to the relationship component of the business rather than the transactional component.
Relationship, not transaction.
What I think makes you so great at your job, both of you personally, is I think whoever cares the most kind of grows the most. Like a culture of care and connection, and you reflect the best of Compass culture. I'm so thankful that you're here. I know you could be anywhere you want. You're top agents in this market and in the country. But I've seen the people that really care about their clients, that when your client's happy and they go, "You're happy," everything follows from that.
For any client who has taken the journey of a real estate transaction with us, they appreciate it. They get it. They understand that every deal—and we say this at the beginning—there are going to be some bumps. There'll be some bumps, but we're going to be there. We're the pilots of this plane and we're going to land it safely. It's going to be good. And we really pride ourselves on absorbing whatever stress there is, because this is what we do all day, every day. So the client should not feel stress, just understand there's always a little stress.
There's always something. There's always something. And that's why Compass One, I think, is so helpful. What Compass One is, you know, 24/7 transparency into every step of the process. It's a client dashboard for buyers and sellers, and it gives that transparency before, during, and after the transaction. It helps solve one of the biggest problems I think that you have, which is you're too good at your job—you hide your clients from the pain. So at the end of the transaction, when the payments are made, do they really remember all that you did for them?
Do they remember all the phone calls, all the text messages you responded to, all the emails you responded to, how quickly you responded, how early in the morning it was, how late it was at night? Do they remember all of the appointments you made on their behalf, all the open houses? Of course not. How many people you negotiated with on their behalf? You didn't even tell them about a lot of it because you didn't want to stress them out.
Lawyers, on that example, they do the same thing. They hide you from the pain, but then they throw it in every once in a while: "If you don't do this, you may get sued for $10 million." They give just enough. But this client dashboard makes your work visible and in a nice, beautiful, attractive place where it's easy for them and doesn't stress them out. But I actually used the client dashboard as a client. My wife and I rented a summer place, and what I was shocked by is half the things on the timeline and tasks I didn't even know had to happen. One example: electrician appointment to test the Tesla charger. If she didn't put it there, I would have never known that she did it. It just happened.
Yeah. And then the whole co-op board process in New York City, I mean, that is in and of itself—we're going to be doing a whole episode on that, seriously.
And when I said earlier global domination, I meant that in the nicest way. I really did. We've been getting calls from back in December when we bought Christie's, for example. That's a big thing. We got calls from a lot of clients like, "Wow, you guys are really in the right place at the right time."
This is a moment for our industry. Last year was the lowest level of transactions in 29 years.
Last year being 2024. Four million homes sold.
Exactly. Four million. And the population now is 25% bigger than it was 29 years ago, and still the lowest level of transactions.
With that challenge comes opportunity, and what we're seeing—it's fascinating to watch, I love it, I'm so happy about this—is the best agents gaining market share. There's a line that people have said for many years in real estate: in down times, the best agents gain market share; in down times, the best agents keep the biz, the worst agents leave the biz. There were 1.5 million agents in the country. Last year, 70% of those agents didn't do one transaction.
