Andy Florance, the founder and CEO of CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) and Homes.com, took aim at Zillow (NASDAQ: Z, ZG) for its new ban on private listings.
In April, Zillow announced it was enacting the National Association of Realtors’ Clear Cooperation Policy with “new standards for listing transparency” that bans private listings from its platform. The policy mandates that listings which are publicly marketed in any platform, including social media postings, must be in the MLS and published on Zillow, as well as other sites that receive MLS feeds. Zillow stated it would not publish listings that fail to meet those standards.
“Last week, Zillow banned the first agent’s listing who hadn’t submitted their listing to Zillow within 24 hours of marketing it,” wrote Florance in a post on LinkedIn. “Zillow demands all your listings immediately and then takes the leads generated, selling them to other agents. While Zillow preaches they are protecting the industry by requiring submission of listings to the MLS within 24 hours of public marketing, in fact their new rule does not apply to listings directly submitted to Zillow, and Zillow alone.”
Florance pointed out Zillow’s close relations with Redfin and Realtor.com, which he described as “an anticompetitive cartel.” He also noted Redfin is following Zillow’s policy.
“How do agents and brokers keep earning commissions when Zillow aggressively holds the reins over four major real estate portals?” Florance asked. “Zillow is consolidating power over listings, buyer-agent commissions, and now, listing-agent commissions. How is this even legal?”
As for the banned listing cited by Florance, he announced Homes.com boosted it for free on its platform.
“I commend the agent that is standing up to Zillow’s outrageous bullying and intimidation,” he said, adding that “every real estate agent in America should stand up to Zillow’s bullying. Please refer your buyers and sellers to Homes.com where we respect and protect your relationship with your clients.”
Why is this news? Is that the best real estate news out there? What a shock, the founder of Homes.com taking a shot at Zillow! He should be more concerned with the marketing dollars he is spending on a horrific campaign that will do nothing for Homes.com.
Homes.com gives leads from your listings to YOU. No charge. I sure wish we could get people to stop buying useless leads from Zillow. Put the vultures out of business.
Sadly NAR, CAR and all the other locals e.g. SRAR etc. are all bought by Zillo. They are all in Zillo’s pocket. NAR & CAR allowed the scavengers like Zillo etc. to tap into our MLS. They sold out our Real Estate industry, and did not protect we, the Realtors. Sad.
His point on it being a double standard is spot on. If you put it on Zillow only, cool. If you put it on Instagram or Realtor.com or Homes.com only, banned. That right there exposes that it’s NOT about transparency for consumers. Zillow makes their money on selling the zip code leads. So them pretending to care about consumers and transparency is only a front when it’s really about preserving their income stream.
Homes.com sells something called a “pro subscription” and for that $ they do the same thing as Zillow – essentially providing priority placement on the grocery store shelf for $. On Homes.com if a real estate agent pays $ for the “pro subscription”, they will be inserted into places they do not belong…giving priority placement for $. For example, if you pay $ to Homes.com they will take a listing and in the scroll feed of the property’s description, it will list a few agents who are “specialists in the area/neighborhood”. 99% of those agents have only sold 1 property in that area/neighborhood – which obviously does not qualify as a “specialist” of anything. Instead, Homes.com is mischaracterizing these agents and misrepresenting them and their knowledge of these communities. That is fraud, misrepresentation, unethical, against the NAR and local Code Of Conducts and deceitful. In addition, Compass Real Estate has a lawsuit against Zillow and the reason why is because Compass is trying to formulate a private network so it can capture a large segment of the market and bookend both sides of the commission (also unethical, misrepresentative and deceitful). Zillow is standing in the way of those plans by not allowing for their “private exclusive” listings to be showcased on their website (i.e. if it’s “private”…keep it private). Unfortunately, when Compass decides to make “private listings” one of their main goals, it undermines the very nature of RE industries Clear Cooperation efforts, which facilitates putting houses onto a platform to provide maximum exposure, not limited exposure. I don’t blame Compass for being upset by Zillow’s unwillingness to accommodate them…it undermines their model. However, it also promotes a single company’s interests and not the general public and the home owners.