{"id":50695,"date":"2026-05-22T23:19:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-zillows-listing-war-with-mred-and-compass\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:19:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:19:49","slug":"everything-you-need-to-know-about-zillows-listing-war-with-mred-and-compass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-zillows-listing-war-with-mred-and-compass\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything you need to know about Zillow\u2019s listing war with MRED and Compass"},"content":{"rendered":"

The battle between Zillow<\/strong>, Midwest Real Estate Data<\/strong> (MRED) and Compass International Holdings<\/strong>, reached a zenith this week when MRED suspended its IDX and VOW listing feeds<\/a> to Zillow and Trulia<\/strong>. This came after the portal allegedly refused to cure what the MLS called a \u201cmaterial breach\u201d of its license agreements. MRED claims that, according to its licensing agreement with Zillow, the portal must display all of the listings MRED supplies it with.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s are the significant happenings from the beginning:<\/p>\n

MRED had warned Zillow of its plan to pull the listing feeds earlier in the week, causing Zillow to file a motion for a preliminary injunction<\/a> asking the court overseeing its antitrust lawsuit against MRED and Compass<\/a> to prevent MRED from terminating its listing access while the lawsuit proceeds. The lawsuit, which was filed in mid-May alleges that the Chicagoland MLS and the nation\u2019s largest brokerage conspired to withhold listing data and pressure Zillow to carry private \u201chidden\u201d listings nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both the lawsuit and MRED\u2019s decision to suspend its listing data feeds to Zillow stem from Zillow\u2019s Listing Access Standards<\/a> policy, which the portal first announced in early April of 2025. The policy bans listings that are publicly marketed for more than one day before being available for display on sites powered by IDX or VOW data feeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just prior to Zillow beginning to roll out enforcement of its policy<\/a> late last June, Compass filed a lawsuit<\/a> against Zillow, claiming that the portal was breaking federal antitrust laws with its policy.\u00a0 \u201cTo protect its market dominance, Zillow has retaliated against competitive threats by enacting an exclusionary policy,\u201d Compass argued in its lawsuit. The policy directly threatened listings Compass was marketing through its three-phased marketing strategy.<\/a> <\/p>\n

In July<\/a> 2025, Compass asked the court to prevent Zillow from enforcing its policy. This ask culminated in a four day hearing <\/a>in late November 2025, which ultimately resulted in a judge denying Compass\u2019s motion<\/a>, enabling Zillow to continue enforcing the policy while the suit proceeded. <\/p>\n

In mid-March 2026, a little over a month after this ruling, Compass moved to dismiss the suit<\/a>. At the time, Compass said it chose to dismiss the case after Zillow clarified that listings publicly marketed first on Compass-owned websites or on Redfin<\/strong><\/a> would no longer automatically be banned from Zillow under its Listing Access Standards policy. The clarification came alongside Zillow\u2019s rollout of \u201cZillow Preview,\u201d a pre-marketing listings product.<\/p>\n

Like the tension between Zillow and Compass, the current dispute between Zillow and MRED has been brewing for nearly just as long. While Zillow began enforcing its listing access standards on June 30, 2025, at this time it was not enforcing the policy everywhere, as it began a phased rollout of the policy.\u00a0According to a Zillow spokesperson, one of the \u201cvery last\u201d markets Zillow was working to launch its policy in was Chicago, due to MRED\u2019s internal private listing network (PLN), which MRED launched in 2016. The PLN allows brokers and their sellers to pre-market listings to other MLS participants before making the listings fully public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In early November 2025<\/a>, however, MRED sent an email to the managing brokers in its network letting them know that the MRED team was aware that some of them may have received phone calls from Zillow regarding MRED\u2019s PLN. According to the email obtained by HousingWire,<\/strong> MRED stated that based on Zillow\u2019s policy, \u201ccertain PLN listings [may] not be displayed on Zillow\u2019s property search websites.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the time, a Zillow spokesperson told HousingWire that Zillow had been attempting to work with MRED regarding its PLN listings since the spring of 2025 and that they had not yet sent policy violation warnings to brokers in the MRED service area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later that month, the two were again at odds over a report Zillow<\/a> published claiming that homes in majority-white neighborhoods in Chicago<\/a> are more than twice as likely to be listed privately than homes in majority-non-white neighborhoods. In the report, Zillow claimed that its findings highlighted \u201chow private listing systems can unintentionally reinforce racial segregation and restrict access to housing opportunities.\u201d The report warned that if the usage of private listing networks increases in certain areas it could \u201camplify inequities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to this, MRED published a statement<\/a> the it takes fair housing \u201cvery seriously,\u201d as it noted that it has \u201crules and processes in place to scan all private and active listings for violations.\u201d The MLS also noted that all of its members have equal access to its PLN, meaning that no matter which neighborhood or area an agent works in, they can see all of the private listings throughout MRED\u2019s service area.<\/p>\n

Just weeks later, both MRED and Zillow were at it again, when MRED sent an email<\/a>, obtained to HousingWire, to members warning them that the listing portal\u2019s industry relations team is contacting MRED subscribers and allegedly threatening to contact their home seller clients.<\/p>\n

Despite the bluster of both firms, neither took any sort of public action until Zillow filed its antitrust lawsuit in mid-May. Zillow\u2019s lawsuit came just weeks after MRED and Compass International Holdings announced a partn<\/a>e<\/a>rship<\/a> to expand MRED\u2019s private listing network nationwide. The arrangement allows Compass agents across the country to input listings into MRED\u2019s system. In the suit. Zillow alleged that the explicit aim of this agreement was to shield these listings from \u201cpro-transparency\u201d platforms and extend MRED\u2019s leverage beyond its Chicago-area footprint.<\/p>\n

Additionally, according to the lawsuit, by early May 2026, MRED allegedly demanded that Zillow reinstate Compass private listings in markets hundreds of miles outside MRED\u2019s traditional service area. On the same day, Zillow says, the technology provider that distributes MRED\u2019s listing feed threatened to terminate Zillow\u2019s access entirely if it did not comply. In the suit, Zillow said the message was clear: Either allow Compass private listings nationally or lose access to all Chicagoland listings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the events of this week showed, Zillow did not give in to these alleged demands, keeping it in violation of its licensing agreement, according to MRED, resulting in the termination of its listing feeds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court has yet to rule on Zillow\u2019s motion for a preliminary injunction, so it remains unknown currently how long thousands of Chicagoland area listings will be missing from Zillow<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The battle between Zillow, Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) and Compass International Holdings, reached a zenith this week when MRED suspended its IDX and VOW listing feeds to Zillow and Trulia. This came after the portal allegedly refused to cure what the MLS called a \u201cmaterial breach\u201d of its license agreements. MRED claims that, according…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}