Chicago-area homes for sale may disappear from Zillow
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The Zillow website on a laptop. Photo: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The company that distributes most Chicago-area home listings is cutting off Zillow's access to those properties.
Why it matters: Homebuyers using Zillow and Trulia will soon no longer see all Chicago-area homes for sale, and sellers won't be able to rely on those sites to get their listing in front of buyers.
The latest: MRED informed Zillow at 6:30am CT on Wednesday that it would lose access to MRED listings, a Zillow spokesperson tells Axios.
How it works: Most licensed real estate agents in Chicago register homes they are selling on the multilisting site MRED (Midwest Real Estate Data), which is based in suburban Lisle.
- MRED then pushes those listings out to various websites that buyers use to browse homes, such as Zillow.
Catch up quick: At the heart of the disagreement between MRED and Zillow are private listings, sometimes called "pocket listings." These are home sales that are shared between agents rather than posted for the public to see.
- Zillow has banned these types of listings in recent years, saying they threaten transparency and access to the full picture of available homes.
- In a lawsuit filed this week, Zillow also claims that MRED's recent partnership with major brokerage Compass to allow the New York-based firm to post its listings on the MRED is a violation of antitrust law.
- Previously, MRED was strictly for home sales in Chicago and the surrounding area, but the Compass partnership opens it up to nationwide listings.
What they're saying: "At its core, this dispute is about Zillow attempting to impose its own display rules on listings that are lawfully marketed under MRED policies and at the discretion of sellers and their brokers," MRED said in a statement.
The other side: "The people paying the price today are real. Sellers who listed their homes expecting to reach every buyer on Zillow. Buyers who just want to see every home available to them. Thousands of independent agents who had no voice in this decision and nothing to gain from it," Zillow said in a statement.
Flashback: Zillow created listing standards in 2025 to limit private listings.
- After MRED and Compass continued allowing private listings, Zillow revised its standards to permit them under limited circumstances.
Reality check: Some Chicago-area listings will be available on Zillow, as real estate brokerages have agreements to directly feed the site their listings.