Zillow Bans Most Private Listings, Setting Up Potential Conflict With Brokerages

In a major policy announcement today, portal giant Zillow sharply escalated a long-simmering dispute over private listings, implementing what the company is calling new “listing access standards” that will essentially boycott properties that were previously limited to internal brokerage or MLS platforms. 

Speaking to RISMedia this afternoon, Zillow Chief Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson says the new standards reflect a larger principle the company is standing behind, “the idea being that when consumers have access to information—and complete access to information—there’s better outcomes.”

“This is about consumers first, right?” he says. “Whenever we as an industry look at what the buyers need, what the sellers need before what we need as a brokerage or as a portal—if we put consumers first, everyone wins.”

The move appears also to be a repudiation of a new National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) policy announced last month that allows MLSs to prevent listings from being “syndicated” to consumer platforms like Zillow, and challenges big brokerages like Compass that have launched or expanded internal private listing platforms. Consumers will now be faced with seeing their home banned from one of the most-recognized real estate websites in the country if they choose a private listing service.

A seller who parts ways with their agent after using a private listing service, and subsequently re-lists with a new agent or broker would be eligible again to have their property on Zillow, a company spokesperson clarified.

The new standards set Zillow up for a major confrontation with those who have sought to bring more listings onto their own platforms, pitting a $13 billion household name against a swath of companies—most notably Compass and its CEO Robert Reffkin, who has argued that private listings increase seller choice. Other brokerages run similar platforms, and even some third-parties offer independent private networks for listings.

Compass has acknowledged that most of its private listings end up on the MLS, claiming that its internal platforms allow sellers to test the waters and avoid negative metrics like price drops and days on market.

Reffkin has also claimed that private listings sell for higher prices, something Zillow also disputed in its release, citing the company’s own data and studies.

Samuelson claims that brokerages and MLSs the company speaks to are “generally” onboard with the principles behind Zillow’s new standards, although he expects there to be some holdouts. 

“We speak to pretty much every brokerage in the industry, whether they agree with us or not on any particular topic,” he says. “We’re talking to everyone and we’re hoping that not only our efforts, but efforts of others as well, will continue this push for more transparency, more fairness, versus going into sort of a more restrictive, balkanized world.”

Clashing with “exempt”

Zillow’s policy also appears to effectively undermine NAR’s new “exempt” listing designation, which was announced in March after almost a year of pressure from Reffkin and others to modify or repeal the Clear Cooperation Policy—although details are still sparse and how exactly the two policies will interact is not entirely clear.

In its announcement today, Zillow said even an Instagram post would count as marketing and require the listing be submitted to the MLS and published to Zillow (and other portals). NAR’s “exempt” designation specifically allows MLSs to hold listings away from Zillow and the portals while still posting them on social media or other public-facing websites.

Samuelson clarifies that it is any public marketing that would violate the new Zillow standards, which applies to all listing designations.

“Let’s say the brokerage put (an exempt listing) on their own website, then under our policy, they would also need to put it in the MLS and make sure that other brokers (are) able to display that listing. If they do that, they’re fine. If they don’t do that, then they would be subject to the standard,” he says.

Other MLSs have similar policies around partially withholding listings from broader marketing, and it is unclear how many would violate the new Zillow standards

Notably, the new Zillow standards still allow for the “office exclusives” exception created by NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy, with the Zillow boycotts only applying to listings marketed to consumers—meaning agents can still hold listings off the MLS and share them with other agents.

Doug Miller, a consumer lawyer who was instrumental in the original commission lawsuits, told RISMedia last week that office exclusives create the biggest problems in terms of harm for consumers—and potential antitrust violations.

“This whole concept of Clear Cooperation was meant to address pocket listings, and obviously the very thing they did was to exempt out the pocket listings, the office exclusives,” he says. “There’s no good reason for them. There never has been. They are there to harm consumers and help brokers get double commissions, and that’s the only reason they exist.”

Samuelson says the company still believes there are “legitimate reasons” to keep a listing private, including as an office exclusive. The issue the company has with private listing networks is more about brokerages (or anyone else) “baiting” buyers and sellers with exclusive listings.

“Some sellers want to make that trade off and that’s fine. So you don’t want to preclude the private option, but you do wish to discourage this behavior where you’re using these private listings as bait,” Samuelson claims.

That includes a company advertising that it has a certain number of exclusive listings “behind a registration wall,” Samuelson says, even if the listings aren’t immediately accessible to the public.

Zillow also announced that eXp Realty, with its 85,000 agents, is “the first to join Zillow” and “commit” to the new policy, according to Zillow’s announcement.

“This partnership is about delivering value and building trust, two things that matter more than ever in today’s rapidly evolving real estate landscape,” said eXp CEO Leo Pareja in a statement. 

Samuelson characterized the “partnership” as a broad agreement on principles rather than any specific commitment or deal, saying that Zillow sees eXp as a standard-bearer for the kind of transparency his company is pushing for.

“What they’ve done here is they’ve come out publicly and said that they support the standard that we have, that they think that this is pro-consumer, and we appreciate that,” he explains.

In its announcement, Zillow also called on other brokerages to make this same kind of commitment, through a similar public affirmation of “listing transparency.” He said that Zillow would also continue to be “vocal” on the consumer side in advocating for these values, mostly through media and research, adding that there are potential fair housing concerns with private listings—something highlighted by others in the industry.

“It’s just the principle. You’re either publicly marketing it, in which case it’s fair and equitable for everyone, or it’s private. Those are your two paths,” Samuelson says.

Editor’s note: this story was updated at 5:53 p.m. eastern time based on clarifications from a Zillow spokesperson.