Midwest Real Estate Data has revoked Zillow’s access to its licensed listing data for display on its consumer websites, shortly following the antitrust lawsuit Zillow filed against MRED and Compass.
MRED claims that Zillow decided not to display 99.8% of MRED’s listings on its platforms because it “disagrees with the lawful marketing strategy associated with the remaining 0.02% of listings.” Zillow, on the other hand, said that the listings they declined to display are for homes in California, Florida and Georgia, which they say are “not listings Chicago buyers and agents are concerned with.”
Additionally, Zillow claims those listings were initially hidden from most buyers and displaying them on Zillow while Compass kept them on the open market would be covering up a private listing scheme. According to Zillow, “MRED was looking for a way to cut off Zillow to help Compass, and they found it a few rule changes and thousands of miles away.”
MRED alleges that this dispute pertains to Zillow’s “attempting to impose” its own display rules on listings that are lawfully markrted under MRED policies, as well as at the discretion of sellers and their brokers.
MRED said they notified Zillow of the exclusion of those listings two weeks ago, which they say Zillow responded to by filing the antitrust lawsuit. Zillow had been given a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on May 19 to “cure those violations,” which MRED claims they failed to do.
According to Zillow, “This is the first time in MRED’s history it has ever claimed authority over listings outside its traditional service area. MRED cut off every Chicago broker’s access to Zillow’s audience over a handful of Compass listings in states MRED has never operated in. And it changed its own rules just to make it happen, at Reffkin’s demand.”
Zillow also said that the rule MRED is claiming they violated did not exist when Zillow signed its agreement and that MRED changed them “after Compass CEO Robert Reffkin personally emailed MLSs across the country urging them to cut off Zillow’s feeds.”
“Rules enforcement is the most important and difficult responsibility an MLS undertakes on behalf of the cooperative marketplace,” says Rebecca Jensen, president and CEO of MRED. “Our rules apply equally to every participant, and we have a duty to educate our participants and vendors, counsel them when they are out of compliance, and require that breaches be cured.”
Matt Kreamer, a communications director with Zillow, provided the following statement to Chicago Agent:
“Chicagoland home buyers and sellers this morning have far worse access to the housing market than they had yesterday, because their local MLS decided one megabrokerage’s profits mattered more than their ability to achieve the American dream.
“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. MRED sacrificed them all to protect the hidden listing scheme of the largest brokerage in the country.
“MRED and Compass have colluded to turn back the clock on consumer transparency at the exact moment American families can least afford it, cutting off competition, hiding homes and engineering a market that extracts more from buyers and sellers so Compass can pocket more on every deal.
“Last night, MRED grasped at a different straw: seeking to force this case into arbitration so it doesn’t have to defend its conspiracy in court. This isn’t a mere disagreement over rules, And MRED should have to answer for its illegal conspiracy in a court of law.”