Zillow defends its pre-market listing product as publicly visible and aligned with transparency standards. Zillow contrasts this with private listing networks that are limited to buyers working with particular brokerages or agents. Zillow frames its product as intended to help sell homes, while it characterizes private listing networks as designed to hide homes to increase reliance on specific brokerages. Zillow links the alleged conduct to broader housing market pressures, including high mortgage rates and elevated home prices alongside low inventory. Zillow alleges that brokerages may withhold listings to raise profits and that a conspiracy would block transparency-focused platforms, harming buyers and sellers in major markets like Chicago. Zillow also claims MRED and Compass control nearly all listing platform market share in Chicagoland and have acted in coordination to pressure competitors.
"Zillow defended its pre-market listing product as "available for any buyer to see and aligned with our transparency standards." "Private listings networks are just that-private, and only available to buyers working with a specific brokerage or agent," Zillow said. "The goal of Preview is to help sell the house. The goal of PLNs is to hide the house to force more buyers into working with your brokerage.""
"Zillow worries that the MRED/Compass plan will inevitably block platforms that are promoting more transparency from competing with powerful private listings network providers. That will disadvantage both buyers and sellers in major markets like Chicago, Zillow alleged. "Defendants' conspiracy harms home buyers and sellers by incentivizing brokerages to withhold listings from the market only until the listing fails to sell privately, thus erecting barriers to information, exacerbating the accessibility and affordability crisis, and reducing the pool of buyers and listings that makes the real estate market efficient and competitive," Zillow alleged."
"In its complaint, Zillow said that MRED and Compass "control over 99 percent of the market for Chicagoland real estate listing platforms." Allegedly, they've worked "in lockstep" and "in secret" to "leverage MRED's monopoly power and control over Chicagoland listing feeds to force competitors like Zillow to display unwa""
#real-estate-listings #zillow-preview #private-listing-networks #housing-market-transparency #chicago-real-estate
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