A week after Zillow pulled a hard line on lists outside the market, Redfin has rolled out his own ultimatum.
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman wrote a short statement and said “buyers should see all lists and sellers should check how their listing appears online.”
He continued to say that “Redfin.com will not publish any lists that have been marketed in public before being shared with all real estate sites via MLS.”
So salespeople cannot actually control their listing if they want it to be syndiced on sites like Redfin.
They have to share it everywhere, right away, otherwise it will not show up on Redphin or Zillow in the future.
Redfin takes a position similar to Zillow
Per Kelman’s statement must a home seller go ahead with a standard listing if they want their listing to show up on Redfin.
In other words, you cannot first market the property first and then syndicate to Redfin later.
If you do, you can’t enjoy all traffic spaces like Redfin Get. A potential buyer will also not stumble across your listing that way.
The problem is that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) just revealed a new opportunity for home sellers known as “delayed marketing” that allows public marketing as long as the property is submitted to MLS.
This option allows different brokers to see what is for sale and share it with their clients.
However, it does not activate IDX syndication, which means that sites like Redfin and Zillow will not get these lists until a later date.
As such, they would lose on a lot of lists (and traffic) if a larger number of home sellers chose this option.
Things are that most sellers do not and it is not, so it feels a little heavy hand to throw out an ultimatum.
Kelman calls for new ones to come soon lists that hide days on the market and price changes
In addition, in an attempt to “encourage” home sellers to put their lists on MLS and websites like his immediate, Redfin, Redfin has asked MLS to create a new “upcoming-for-appoint.”
It would prevent portals like Redfin and Zillow from showing how long a home has been for sale (days on the market) and at what prices (if any price changes).
This supports his statement of giving control to home sellers.
The idea is that salespeople are cool with listing everywhere, but may not want if they are concerned days on the market (judgment), or a price cut to their list to look less attractive to buyers.
Of course, this is not transparent and also goes against the idea of looking for the consumer.
If we are honest, a list must contain all relevant information and history, including price changes and days in the market.
Hiding any of these key information would go against the spirit of transparency and possibly negatively affect the home buyer.
Remember, it is a two -way street and there are both home buyers and housing sellers in the equation.
There must be a straight venue for both. To this end, I still agree that more exposure to your sale list is a good thing if you want to pick up the highest price of the shortest time.
It’s just that an ultimatum that contradicts NAR’s own guidelines seems a little a lot, especially when it protects their own interests (page views).
[When should I start looking for a home to buy?]
Homes.com Andy Florance says portals should remain neutral
A larger portal CEO that went against the grain was Costar Groups Andy Florance, who runs Portal Homes.com.
While it is much less popular than Zillow and Redfin, they have also spent a ton of advertising to become an important player in the room.
And unlike Zillow, they only have the listing agent’s information on listing pages instead of selling this space as a lead to outside agents.
In a LinkedIn post, he wrote: “Delayed IDX syndation is allowed according to fool rules. But Zillow claims that they, not, not your broker, not you the listing agent -and not even the homeowner whose house it is and pays the Commission -to decide how a list is marketed.”
“This is not about protecting consumers. It’s about protecting Zillow’s ability to take advantage of your lists by selling your leads to competing agents.”
He added that portals “must remain neutral” and that it is “never acceptable for a real estate portal to threaten agents in this way.”
Florance certainly has a point here, especially as the new directives go against fools.
And ultimatums are never a good way to approach a perceived problem or threat, especially if it is not even a big problem at the moment.
Again, I still think MAX exposure to a real estate list is good to everyone involved, and it will probably continue to be the preferred choice for sellers anyway.
But the elephant in the space that many do not consider when evaluating the situation are portals that Zillow could eventually offer a self -service, real estate -free opportunity to buy and sell homes.
At the same time, new platforms will come up that will offer the same. So trying to force a Vollgrav may beat back.
While real estate agents like Compass may appear greedy now, they may just try to protect their business model from upstarts that squeezes the agent completely.
And that is, after all, their listing. Their data. And their choices (along with their client) how to convey it.
Read on: 2025 Home Selling Tips to get top dollar for your listing
