Judge orders MRED to restore Zillow home listings
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A federal judge ordered the company that distributes most Chicago-area home listings to restore Zillow's access to its database — at least for now.
Why it matters: Buyers who visited Zillow were not seeing the full scope of homes for sale after MRED, the major multi-listing service for the Chicago area, cut off Zillow's access to its portal this week.
The latest: A federal judge Friday ordered MRED to restore Zillow's access to Chicago-area listing data from MRED.
Catch up quick: At the heart of the disagreement are private listings, sometimes called pocket listings, which are home sales shared among agents before they are posted to the general public.
- 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 last week, Zillow's attorneys argued that MRED's partnership with brokerage giant Compass unfairly allows Compass to cast a wider net to sell their homes while penalizing Zillow for restricting some private listings, thereby violating antitrust law.
Context: Previously, MRED was strictly for home sales in Chicago and the surrounding area, but the Compass partnership now makes it available nationwide.
What they're saying: After Friday's order, Zillow accused MRED and Compass of "suppress[ing] competition" by restricting how listings are shared with consumers.
The other side: After Friday's ruling, MRED said in a statement to Axios that Zillow triggered the dispute by refusing to display certain lawful listings while still expecting access to the MLS feed.
- "The central issue remains unchanged: Zillow wants the benefit of receiving MLS listing data while reserving the right to discriminate against certain lawful listings, sellers, and brokers whose marketing strategies it disfavors."
Zoom out: The Zillow-MRED dispute has rocked the real estate world, with some agents saying that sellers should be able to advertise their homes how they see fit, whether that's privately between agents or casting a wider net on sites like Zillow.
- But others say private listings actually disadvantage people trying to sell their home.
- "If I'm a seller, I'm furious, but I don't think the sellers get that at first," agent and Echo Fine Properties Jeff Lichtenstein tells Axios. "They sell once every 11 years on average. So, if they list it ... and get an offer without the full funnel of buyers being aware, then maybe it seems OK."
Between the lines: Not all Chicago listings were missing from Zillow. Some real estate firms feed their listings directly to the site.
- A Zillow spokesperson tells Axios it could take several hours for restored MRED listings to fully reappear on the site.