Compass Sues Seattle-Area MLS in Battle Over Private Listings
Compass Inc. ratcheted up its fight to change how homes are sold online, filing a lawsuit against a Seattle-area group the brokerage alleges is engaging in anticompetitive practices.
The suit, filed Friday in Seattle federal court, argues that the Northwest Multiple Listing Service is illegally restricting Compass agents from publicly marketing properties that were previously shared on an exclusive basis, as well as homes touted as 'coming soon' on the company's website. Compass, the biggest residential brokerage in the US by sales volume, also contends that NWMLS is violating homeowners' rights with the policy.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Geek Wire
5 hours ago
- Geek Wire
Rooted in founder's belief that tech can do good, ChatGPTree is an AI tool with a regenerative focus
GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter , and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory . ChatGPTree will plant one tree per month for every subscriber to its new AI chatbot platform. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) The seed for startup founder John Vincent Lee's latest endeavor was planted while scrolling on TikTok, where he saw a brief video about a couple in Brazil who planted 2 million trees over 18 years to restore a deforested region. Inspired by their story, Lee, the founder and former CEO of Seattle-based peer-to-peer laundry startup Loopie, searched GoDaddy for the domain ' 'As soon as it said it was available, I was like, 'OK, I think I need to try to create this thing,' Lee said, just days after launching the beta of ChatGPTree, a generative AI tool that works just like the OpenAI juggernaut from which it borrows its clever name, but with an added eco-friendly twist. ChatGPTree users pay $11 per month ($9 less than ChatGPT Pro) to access an AI bot that will help with email replies, cover letters, dating advice and more, and at the end of each month, the company plants a tree in the name of each subscriber. The goal is to push back against the growing environmental costs of generative AI, driven by the massive water and energy demands of data centers that power the tech, and do some good for the planet via AI chats that millions of people are already having. 'People want to feel better about using AI,' Lee said. 'Instead of just extracting value, let's use AI to give something back to the planet, and build a system that makes that kind of goodness scalable. Be intentional about it, so it's not artificial intelligence for the sake of speed and access to information. What we really need in this moment, I think, is intentional AI.' Members of the ChatGPTree team from left: Diana Hickman, Michael Parry, John Vincent Lee, and Sruly Kotlarsky. Designer Anna Dawson is not pictured. (Photo courtesy of John Vincent Lee) ChatGPTree is the first initiative launched out of Lee's new Compassion Ventures, a venture studio and fund aimed at high-growth 'regenerative' startups. In a post on LinkedIn, Lee said such startups 'heal and enrich the systems they touch: ecological, financial, technological, and human.' Lee launched Loopie in 2018 in a bid to attract customers who hated doing laundry and washers who were OK with getting paid to do the chore. The startup raised $5 million and scaled to nine cities before selling off parts of the business to competitors last year and eventually winding down. Lee has been working out of New York City for close to a year and said he'll probably operate ChatGPTree out of Seattle this summer. He also has a strong network in Los Angeles and will continue to jump around. ChatGPTree's large language model is integrated with OpenAI's GPT-4 API. Its answers are pretty similar to how ChatGPT would respond, but Lee said some tweaks enable ChatGPTree answers to be a bit more concise 'to save as much energy as possible.' As a test, I prompted both tools with the same question: 'I'm thinking about starting an AI tech company. What concerns should I have about the tech's environmental impact?' (Click to enlarge) A prompt and reply on ChatGPTree. (Screen grab via ChatGPTree) ChatGPTree offered up a list of six concerns with short explanations for how to potentially offset those concerns. 'Want to dive deeper into a specific area?' it asked. ChatGPT replied similarly but at greater length, with seven categories highlighting areas of concern, with each area featuring two or three additional bullet points on what I could do to mitigate those concerns. It ended by asking, 'Would you like help drafting a green AI policy or sustainability framework for your company?' For the tree-planting aspect of the business, ChatGPTree has partnered with a European company called EverTree. To start, trees will be planted in Oregon and Madagascar. 'I've enjoyed learning a little bit more about trees, which is something I didn't expect to do, having been focused on building technology for the last few years,' Lee said, after rattling off how much CO2 a 50-year-old Douglas fir tree in Oregon sequesters per year. Beyond the 'Solo Sapling' plan for one user at $11/month, ChatGPTree will offer a 'Starter Grove' plan for up to 10 team members and a 'Lush Forest' plan for up to 50 members using the bot. ChatGPTree employs about five people right now. Compassion Ventures has raised a small amount of cash from one family office, but is mostly self-funded. Since the beta launch, Lee is spending some time doing outreach with potential customers, getting a better gauge of how people use AI and how they view its environmental impact. Some have told him they'll use AI for everything no matter what, while others abstain from the tech on principal. So he's providing a platform that might appeal to both sides. 'We're thinking of it from a really big, audacious goal standpoint,' Lee said. 'If 100,000 people use ChatGPTree, we'll plant over 1 million trees a year. That's not a feature to me. That's a future.'
Hamilton Spectator
5 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Montreal home sales, prices rise in May despite steady rates and economic uncertainty
MONTREAL - Home sales in the Montreal-area rose again in May compared with the same month a year ago, as the city's real estate board says both activity and price growth show no signs of tapering off. The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says 4,992 homes in the region changed hands last month, up 10.2 per cent from 4,532 sales in May 2024. Charles Brant, the board's market analysis director, says it marks the third straight month of similar year-over-year sales growth despite mortgage rates remaining in a holding pattern and 'ongoing economic uncertainty.' Brant says there are also 'no signs of a lull in price growth' as around one in seven homes sold above the asking price last month. The median price for all housing types in the Montreal area was up year-over-year, led by an 8.7 per cent increase in price of a single-family home to $625,000. The median price of a plex rose 5.1 per cent to $825,000 and the median price of a condominium increased 4.3 per cent to $427,500. There were 7,596 new listings in the Montreal area last month, up 11.2 per cent from a year earlier, as active listings rose 2.4 per cent to 18,920. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2025.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Montreal home sales, prices rise in May despite steady rates and economic uncertainty
MONTREAL — Home sales in the Montreal-area rose again in May compared with the same month a year ago, as the city's real estate board says both activity and price growth show no signs of tapering off. The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says 4,992 homes in the region changed hands last month, up 10.2 per cent from 4,532 sales in May 2024. Charles Brant, the board's market analysis director, says it marks the third straight month of similar year-over-year sales growth despite mortgage rates remaining in a holding pattern and "ongoing economic uncertainty." Brant says there are also "no signs of a lull in price growth" as around one in seven homes sold above the asking price last month. The median price for all housing types in the Montreal area was up year-over-year, led by an 8.7 per cent increase in price of a single-family home to $625,000. The median price of a plex rose 5.1 per cent to $825,000 and the median price of a condominium increased 4.3 per cent to $427,500. There were 7,596 new listings in the Montreal area last month, up 11.2 per cent from a year earlier, as active listings rose 2.4 per cent to 18,920. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2025. The Canadian Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
