A new fight, or maybe war, is underway to control data on real estate.
Depending on who you ask, it’s about the consumer. Most often the home seller who logically benefits from maximum exposure to their listing.
The best way to get the most exposure is by accepting to synde your list of as many portals as possible as Zillow, Redfin, Realtor, etc.
But some real estate agents, such as Compass, move more of their lists internally.
While critics call it greedy to “hide lists”, it can actually be a bigger spectacle to avoid being eradicated.
Zillow matches with Nar on a clear cooperation policy
First a little quick background.
The National Association of Realtor’s (NAR) introduced Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP) in 2019, which requires a property that is publicly marketed to be put on MLS within a working day.
So if the real estate agent goes so far as even putting up a farm sign or sending an e email about the property, the list must also hit MLS within 24 hours (if not a weekend or vacation).
The idea here is to promote cooperation, transparency, justice and ultimately an open housing market where buyers can see everything for sale.
It came up after pocket records became widespread where agents would hang on their lists and not share them in public, perhaps for their own winnings.
The problem is that there are real estate agents who feel that this is too restrictive, as they may want to try different kinds of promotion, advertising, etc. without being seen to fool and mls.
As such updated fools recently ccp a little to allow for a new opportunity called “Delayed marketing“It allows agents to market the list solely, while it also submits it to MLS.
The most important differentiate here is that they do not have to advertise it through any syndication, such as an IDX feed that serves companies like Zillow.
In other words, an agent could push Zillow out for a month if they wanted to, while still getting the property in front of all other agents from different brokerage companies.
Obviously, this would not be good for Zillow as they would potentially lose thousands of lists overnight and no longer be the place to go if you are looking for fresh data.
As such, Zillow (and Trulia) implements a new rule that comes into force in May 2025.
“If a listing is marketed directly to consumers without being listed on MLS and made widely available where buyers are searching for homes, it will not be published on Zillow.”
In other words, if you do not show with it immediately with Zillow, you will not get the list of Zillow period (for the List’s life).
The reason they do this is because they know the very real consequences that lie in front of them.
If not included, they can be in serious trouble as a top property destination on the web.
Of course, if sellers go with the new delayed marketing opportunity, the property is technically shown on MLS immediately so that they can eventually share it on Zillow anyway. Right? Perhaps?
Unclear because Zillow simply says it should be entered “in MLS at the time of public marketing.”
This means that Zillow eventually presses on the standard listing option where the property goes to MLS and is immediately syndicated syndicated.
Zillow does not want to lose data on listing of listing
Zillow has been very vocal on this topic for a while, quoting a study that privately listed home disproportionately damaging color sellers.
While they also said off-MLS sellers, left over more than $ 1 billion on the table in the last two years.
In addition, they found that 63% of ~ 2,000 recent home sellers said their agent “recommended listing on a private listing network” according to their own study.
So clearly they try to get ahead of what could be an absolute disaster for them in the near future if this trend is increasing.
Apart from rolling out their new policies and educating the public with surveys and data, they work with large real estate agents.
In recent days, they have collaborated with EXP and NEXTHOME “to commit to constructing transparency.”
Nexthome CEO James Dwiggins has been an obvious critic of companies such as Compass that have been the most obvious at CCP.
Dwiggins basically claims that brokers who want to do their lists excluding damage the consumer.
In short, less exposure means a lower selling price and a bad customer experience that you need to visit multiple websites or apps to view all available stock.
He isn’t wrong right now, but I think it’s a short -sighted roof that doesn’t see more steps ahead.
This is chess, not pieces
My roof is that this is not really about the consumer. Of course, it is basically a no-brainer that home sellers benefit from more exposure.
The more your listing is seen, the greater the chance of a potential buyer an offer. And the more offers, the higher the selling price.
It’s pretty straightforward. But do zillow really do this because they are interested in the consumer?
Or do they do it because their livelihood depends on it? At the end of the day they need new lists to continue to be fed to their site.
Without noting data, what would they really be? Sure you can visit their site to view your data from the real estate market.
And you can check in on your zestimate from time to time. But without fresh listing data, their web traffic would fall.
It would mean a huge loss of revenue with fewer page views to promote different services, both from third-party advertisers and internal offers such as Zillow housing loans.
It would also mean that fewer real estate agents could advertise on their listing pages via Premier Agent.
Zillow is dependent on public listing data to make money
What if more real estate agents decide not to share their lists in the future via IDX feeds going to sites like Zillow?
What if home traders first start going to another place. At the end of the day, listing of places is an item. They are a crown a dozen.
They all basically show the same information that was presented a little differently. I can go to Zillow, Redphin, Real Estate, Home, etc.
All of these sites show me the same lists for sale in a given area. There is not much to differentiate them other than which ones first appear if I do a web search.
Imagine if I knew they no longer had all the lists in the area where I would buy a home.
Maybe I would start incorporating x -mediation into my search too. Suddenly I spend more time on this site instead.
These page views for portals are now going to the mediation instead. And maybe rightly, so if it’s the mediation (and real estate agent), it’s actually the one that puts together the list.
Do all the heavy lifting and hard work. If this was to get steam, you could see how scary it will be for portals.
If the consumer starts elsewhere, these places could lose relevance very quickly.
Disrupting to Rocket’s pending acquisition of Redfin as well as by the way.
But how many sellers will it be okay to exclude their listing from places like Zillow?
If I sold my home today, I would definitely have it immediately shared with any real estate platform and portal, especially the big guys like Zillow.
The only people who did not want to be celebrities and very private. In addition, it would be uniformed sellers who would choose a private list at this time.
And the only reason they would do this is if they were convinced by the real estate agent to do so.
Maybe because they would be told it would help them avoid days on the market, or a fall in prices, or just increased privacy and a quick sale.
Who knows that? There really aren’t too many compelling reasons why a seller keeps their property from these sites.
Zillow claims in their study that sellers are often persuaded to do so …
If the narrative changes and home buyers begin to realize that not all inventory is in these places, Zillow and others may see traffic fall.
But the true reason I think companies like Compass are making exclusive office is because they know they could eventually be squeezed out of their “partner” portals.
It’s no secret new technology like AI makes it easier to go to the self -service route when you buy or sell a home.
Imagine a not too distant future where Zillow has a much better FSBO option where sellers and buyers remove the “middleman” real estate agent completely.
At that time, agents want them not to shared everything with portals.
They wish they made movements before to “own the list.”
Read on: How is the Property Commission working now?
Before creating this site, I worked as a banking director of a wholesale loan in Los Angeles. My practical experience in the early 2000s inspired me to start writing about mortgage loans 19 years ago to help potential (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on x for hot take.
