Realtracs may suspend Zillow listing feed on June 1 over IDX rules

Realtracs appears to be the latest MLS with plans to potentially pull Zillow’s listing feed if the listing portal giant fails to comply with the Tennessee-based MLS’s updated IDX display rules. 

On Wednesday morning, Realtracs sent an email, obtained by HousingWire and confirmed by the MLS, to brokers informing them that it updated its IDX display rules on April 29, adding a requirement that “if a seller wants their listing publicly marketed, it must appear in search results that match a buyer’s criteria.” 

This means all listings entered into Realtracs that match a consumer’s search criteria must be returned in a vendor’s or portal’s consumer search results unless the seller has specifically elected to not include their property listing or address in public displays. 

According to the email, all platforms that receive Realtracs’ data feed were notified of the rule change, which went into effect on May 13, with compliance with the rule required by May 31. The email then goes on to state that as of Wednesday, Zillow was the only platform to not be in compliance with the agreement terms. 

“We do not expect that to change, given Zillow’s own rule [listing access standards] that prevents sellers from choosing how their properties are marketed and has resulted in dozens of banned Realtracs listings,” the email states. 

According to the MLS, if Zillow does not comply with the terms of the agreement, Realtracs will suspend Zillow’s access to the MLS’s data feed on June 1. 

“We understand this may create disruption for some brokers, agents, and sellers,” the email states. “If a seller specifically wants their property displayed on Zillow, brokers can still make that happen. The Broker Only Export, via [MLS] GRID, allows brokers to send listings directly to Zillow outside of the Realtracs data feed.” 

Additionally, Realtracs notes that listing distribution via Homes.com, Redfin, Realtor.com and Realtracs, as well as other “compliant sites” will remain unchanged. 

Taking a stand

The MLS said it is taking this position because it believes that “no entity” outside of the relationship between a seller and their listing broker should be able to “determine the seller’s go-to market strategy.”

“Realtracs remains committed to protecting broker and seller choice and supporting market transparency consistent with the IDX display rules,” the email concludes. “We will share additional information about the status of Zillow’s non-compliance on June 1. In the meantime, we encourage you to contact Zillow and demand it remove the display ban.” 

In an emailed statement, a Realtracs spokesperson told HousingWire that the MLS “hopes that Zillow will comply with our display rules by the May 31st deadline.” 

Zillow responds

In response to this news, a Zillow spokesperson told HousingWire that Realtracs’ decision to cut off Zillow’s listing feed is “the same playbook already documented in federal court: a coordinated campaign, initiated by Compass CEO Robert Reffkin, to pressure MLSs across the country into pulling sellers’ listings off Zillow.”

“Nashville’s MLS has threatened to cut Nashville-area sellers off from Zillow, the most-visited real estate platform in the country, unless Zillow abandons the standards it has put in place to ensure buyers can trust what they see on our platform,” the spokesperson wrote. “A judge on Friday just ordered the MLS in Chicago to restore our listing feed. Nashville sellers and buyers deserve access to a full, transparent market. Zillow’s listing access standards exist to protect that. We will not abandon them.”

If Realtracs ultimately suspends Zillow’s listing feed next Monday it would be the second MLS to do so in recent weeks. Last week Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) suspended Zillow’s listing feed over a “material breach of its license agreements.” On Friday, however, a Chicago federal court partially granted Zillow’s temporary restraining order, forcing MRED to restore the listing feed by the end of the day. This dispute was part of a larger legal battle between Zillow, MRED and Compass International Holdings, in which Zillow has accused MRED and Compass of colluding. 

Earlier this spring, both MRED and Realtracs announced plans to expand nationwide, with both securing national listing feed agreements with Compass, as well as with United Real Estate for Realtracs.