Zillow’s move to ban private listings has sparked intense debate across the industry. For some, it’s the logical next step toward protecting consumers and increasing market transparency. For others, it’s an audacious flex of market dominance.
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How is it ok that Zillow and Realtor.com are allowed to take my hard earned listing’s leads and “sell” our listing leads to other agents for a profit? See NAR’s Top Executive Salary Details Below…
NAR COMPENSATION & INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR EXPENSES FOR 2023
BOB GOLDBERG (CEO) — $3,002,748 + $56,976
MARK BIRSCHBACH (Strategic Business Innovation & Technology) — $1,067,775 + $56,976
SHANNON MCGAHN (SVP, Government Affairs) — $1,070,027 + $56,976
KATIE JOHNSON (General Counsel) — $1,110,113 + $56,976
LAWRENCE YUN (Chief Economist) — $817,931 + $56,976
JOHN PIERPOINT (Chief Financial Officer) — $794,320 + $56,976
VICTORIA GILLESPIE (Chief Marketing and Communications Officer) — $524,066 + $56,976
DONNA GLAND (SVP, Talent Development Resources) — $657,355 + $56,976
MARC GOULD (SVP, Member Development) — $706,679 + $56,976
Do you think it’s possible that the pirate organization we know as Zillow is colluding behind the scenes with the NAR Cartel and this is all another smoke screen to draw our attention away from NAR’s sins against real estate agents?
National Association of REALTORS® declined RISMedia’s request for comment. Says a lot.
Great comment, agree with every word and thanks for posting their salaries. In the old proprietary Mom & Pop days, these trade organizations may have had some value. Now they sell leads, distract & divert buyers to other listings & brokers, and make up rules. And we pay them for it
By Pareja’s own admission, some sellers want to sell off market. Would it be a complete surprise if that very same seller’s motivation changed and they decided to expose their property to the broader market? Every agent that’s done a fair amount of business has come across a seller whose motivation wasn’t driven by the highest sale price. Let’s stop saying this is all for the consumer’s benefit and call it what it is: an attempt to force more listings to their sites and drive revenue.
100%
My Take on Zillow’s New Policy: Who’s Really Being Served?
As a licensed real estate broker for over three decades, I’ve worked through every market — highs, lows, booms, and crashes. But one thing has always remained true: the seller owns the home, and they should control how it’s marketed.
That’s why Zillow’s latest policy is both tone-deaf and self-serving. Their new rule — banning any listing from their platform for the entire life of the listing if it’s marketed anywhere before being entered into the MLS within 24 hours — isn’t about transparency. It’s about protecting their business model, not sellers or buyers.
Let’s be clear. Zillow is no longer just a search site — they’re a registered brokerage. They pull listing data from the IDX feed, which exists to widely share listings with agents and consumers alike. But Zillow doesn’t operate like your local, boots-on-the-ground agent. Their profit comes from selling leads. The more listings they have, the more leads they can generate — and the more money they make selling those leads back to the same agents who provided the listings in the first place.
If transparency and buyer opportunity were truly their concern, I have one question: Where was that transparency when Zillow was directly buying homes from sellers under their now-defunct iBuyer program? They gave sellers an “instant offer” and skipped MLS entirely — no public exposure, no competition, no agents representing the best interests of the seller. They weren’t worried about visibility then. They were flipping homes for profit — until they lost hundreds of millions of dollars doing it.
So now, instead of supporting listing agents — the very people who built their inventory — Zillow punishes them for honoring a seller’s request to pre-market their home. Maybe that seller needs time. Maybe their circumstances call for a slower roll-out. Maybe their agent is doing exactly what they were hired to do — test the waters, create interest, and build a plan. And has every intent to ultimately place the listing in MLS. So Zillow wants to ban this sellers home? But what about offering every listing to buyers? I guess the only listings that matter to a buyer are those Zillow deem worthy under their new rules.
This isn’t about keeping listings “in-house.” This is about honoring seller intent. About strategy. About timing. About life.
Under Clear Cooperation, we already lost the ability to do “coming soon” marketing the way we used to. And now Zillow, with a straight face, tells us that the only path forward is their way or no way — while claiming it’s all for the seller’s benefit. That’s not transparency — that’s corporate control.
Zillow became a powerhouse because of the hard work of listing agents and the trust of sellers. Now they want to punish those same agents for doing what’s best for their clients?
No thank you.
Sellers deserve options. Agents deserve respect. And Zillow needs to stop pretending they’re the moral authority in real estate — when what they’re really doing is just protecting their pipeline of leads.
No agent in their right mind would use the Delayed Marketing status so it doesn’t really matter at all.
If a seller wants to market privately, they can, BUT they should do so until the listings expiration or until the Agreement is cancelled. I feel like Zillow is saying, you want to be private, be private. Don’t test the waters and try to list a home at an inflated price while not counting days on market, then when it doesn’t work out, relist at a lower, more market friendly price and then share through the IDX as if the property was listed for the first time.
I find it funny that this is being marketed as “more options for sellers”, I don’t buy it. These large brokerages want to keep the deal in house and capitalize. Sellers losing undivided loyalty is not an option that most would choose, and that’s exactly what a private listing sets the stage for. You’re going to tell me that a fellow agent under the same brokerage name is going to suggest a lower price or appropriate market price for their buyer, especially when the brokerage is offering a bonus for an in-house deal….ok.
Everyone is talking about the sellers options…..WHAT ABOUT BUYERS OPTIONS?????
With historically low inventory if national brokerages that have thousands of agents nation wide can convince a seller that it benefits them to list Private, because they can test the market at an inflated price without sacrificing days on market or the publics knowledge, and the seller buys the agents pitch, that puts fewer listings on the national and local markets, decreases inventory and ultimately increases the price of housing. It all comes down to supply and demand, and if buyers have less supply to choose from the cost of housing will continue to increase.
There is nothing wrong with a private listing, but it should remain private for its entirety and if it’s status changes to public, those days on market should be counted and any price decreases or increases should be shown. That’s just my opinion, maybe I’m in the minority.
Lastly, what about the smaller independent brokers and mom & pop brokers? Not all of us want to be part of a franchise and we want to run our brokerages with the vision we have and the rates we are willing to charge, not some corporate vision that forces you to have ridiculous splits and pay franchise fees and walk away with peanuts. Sorry, that’s why I am out on my own. I and my agents, when I get them, will be free to negotiate in the manner we/they deem necessary.
I don’t know what is going on a NAR and what they are thinking but this is just another lawsuit waiting to happen. Again, my opinion, maybe I’m in the minority.