You’ve spent your career at the intersection of real estate and technology. Tell us about your role at Zillow and what you’re most focused on right now. My role at Zillow is about making sure the industry serves consumers. I help lead our industry relations and partner education efforts, and a big part of that…
New York looks likely to become the latest state to create restrictions on private listings. On June 1, the New York State Senate passed the Fair and Transparent Real Estate Listings Act, after amending the bill to include an opt-out option for sellers. The act’s intention is to prevent properties from only being available on…
Real estate’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) was built on a century of shared data and mutual trust among brokers. Now, a panel of industry executives says that trust between agents and consumers is fraying as more properties get pulled into private listing networks. And, increasingly, panelists warn trust and cooperation between rival brokerages is wearing…
As the war over private listings intensifies, Zillow and Compass (among others) are using dueling data reports and starkly different methodologies to make their respective cases in the courtroom—and in the court of public opinion. On July 24, Compass reported that pre-marketed homes that started as Private Exclusives or Coming Soons sold for 4.6% more…
The private listing debate quickly got messy within the industry. Real estate rivals suddenly couldn’t agree even on the definition of “private,” and the disputes have often become technical and insular—seller choice versus transparency, monopolies and conspiracies, the Wall Street boogeyman and the out-of-touch incumbents. But as brokerage and MLS leaders updated policies and focused…
Tennessee-based MLS Realtracs, two months after threatening to join Chicago-based MRED in cutting Zillow off from its listing feed, has entered into a new licensing agreement with the portal, which “ensures uninterrupted listing distribution” while ensuring Realtracs members continue to have access to Zillow tools. In a statement, Realtracs President and CEO Stuart White said…
In his continued movement of expanding seller choice across real estate, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin said he expects “more than 90% of MLSs to have rules that allow sellers to market both Private Exclusives and Coming Soons by the end of the year” during the company’s recent Q2 earnings call. In presenting to investors, Reffkin…
A federal congressional committee sent letters to Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and MRED CEO Rebecca Jensen in relation to their partnership, scrutinizing the relationship between the nation’s largest brokerage and the Chicago-based MLS that is already at the center of a federal lawsuit. The letters were penned by a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee…
The strangest part of the fight over private real estate listings is not that powerful companies are fighting for control of valuable inventory. That is business. It’s that what is too rarely said plainly is that consumer benefits and corporate benefits can coexist, and sometimes conflict. Compass calls its private listing strategy “seller choice.” Zillow…
In a supplemental post-hearing brief filed by defendants Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) and Compass, the defendants argue that Zillow is not entitled to relief because “any harm, if it exists at all, is self-inflicted.” “If Zillow wants MRED’s feed, the ‘lifeblood’ of its business that it receives virtually for free, all Zillow has to…
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