Tennessee brokers brace for Zillow listing cutoff amid Realtracs dispute

A little over a week after real estate agents and brokers in the Chicagoland area saw their listings disappear from Zillow after Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) suspended its data feed to the listing portal giant, real estate professionals in Tennessee are preparing for the same possibility. 

In an email sent to broker members on Wednesday, Tennessee-based MLS Realtracs informed subscribers that it was preparing to suspend its listing feed to Zillow on June 1 if Zillow did not adhere to its updated IDX display rules by a May 31 deadline.

According to Realtracs, on April 29 it updated its IDX display rule to require vendors and portals to display all listings entered into Realtracs that match a consumer’s search criteria in their consumer search results unless the seller has specifically elected to not include their property listing or address in public displays. As of Wednesday, Realtracs said Zillow was the only platform to not be in compliance with the updated 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,” Realtracs’ email to brokers stated. 

As Debra Beagle, the CEO and broker-owner of The Ashton Real Estate Group of REMAX Advantage, heads into the weekend wondering what will happen come Monday, she told HousingWire that the whole situation is “very confusing” for herself, her agents and her clients. 

“Our sellers want our listings on Zillow and agents have told us this. We also handle Zillow Seller leads in our area. We always put our listings in Realtracs unless a seller signs the Realtracs waiver not wanting any public marketing at all — no sign, no advertising publicly,” Beagle said. “Realtracs has always had that waiver option since May 2020. I, as a broker, have to sign that form when a seller requests that. In the five years we’ve only maybe had three dozen sellers ever select that option out of almost 7,000 listings.”

Beagle noted that Zillow does allow brokers to supply it with a direct listing feed, something she and Gary Ashton, the founder of The Ashton Real Estate Group of REMAX Advantage, said they were working to ensure was in place before the weekend. 

“We have a responsibility to our clients to make sure we maximize their exposure through all channels — Realtor.com, REMAX.com, Homes.com and Zillow,” Ashton said. “So, we are in the process of enabling a direct feed so our clients aren’t impacted.”

Beagle added that their sellers “want the most exposure possible to their listings.” 

“That is why they list with us. And our buyers want to be able to see all properties available,” she added. 

“Very unlike the MRED situation”

Like Beagle and Ashton, Phillip Cantrell’s firm Benchmark Realty also has a direct listing feed with Zillow, as well as other portals, which he said was due to agent feedback on consumer preferences to have their listings on all portals. 

Despite potentially facing the same situation as brokers in the Chicagoland area last week, Cantrell told HousingWire that the situation with Realtracs is “very unlike the MRED situation.” 

“Realtracs is one of the best run MLSs in the country. Heretofore, any portal could go to them and get a syndicated feed for $50/month. Most portals took that and repurposed the data, reselling it to the consumer, making huge profits off of the broker and agent’s work product. With zero compensation to the broker or agent for it,” Cantrell wrote in a post on Facebook.

“All this move by Realtracs means is they are saying ‘Hey everybody, we are an IT/data company, warehousing and providing products to access the data, all of which belongs to the broker. If you want to allow a feed, charge for a feed, or terminate a feed, it’s up to you, not us.’ Smart move indeed.”

In Cantrell’s mind, Realtracs’ warning to Zillow shows that the MLS is “stepping out of the middle of deciding winners and losers” and is allowing brokers to decide if they want their listings syndicated to Zillow. 

“What this newest change means is that instead of Realtracs being the one who decides who follows what rule, they have placed all the tools necessary in the broker’s hands (the owner of the data) and what the broker does with it is up to them,” Cantrell told HousingWire via email. 

Zillow’s response

It remains to be seen whether Realtracs will follow through with suspending Zillow’s listing feed on Monday if the listing portal fails to comply with the MLS’s updated IDX display rules. In an emailed statement, 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 International Holdings 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.”

Earlier this month, Zillow filed an antitrust lawsuit against Compass and MRED claiming the two firms  conspired to withhold listing data and pressure Zillow to carry private “hidden” listings nationwide. Last Friday, a federal judge partially granted Zillow’s motion for a temporary restraining order, requiring MRED to restore its listing feed and Zillow to display any listings that were in the MLS’s system as of May 21.

Additionally, Zillow is not allowed to ban listings within ZIP codes nationwide where MRED has had listings between April 2025 and April 2026. The temporary restraining order is set to expire next Friday, however the firms are slated to take part in a two day hearing in early July regarding Zillow’s preliminary injunction motion, which also seeks to prevent MRED from suspending Zillow’s listing feed. 

While, as of Friday afternoon, Zillow has not taken legal action against Realtracs regarding the possible suspension of it listing feed, in a post on the firm’s Front Porch blog on Thursday, the company claimed that this was part of Compass’s “campaign to roll back America’s open and transparent housing market. Sellers and buyers would be harmed, while the country’s largest brokerage benefits.”

Zillow claims that Realtracs is doing this “to line its own pockets and advance the interests of Compass, the largest U.S. real estate brokerage.” 

“What’s happening in Nashville is just one piece of a bigger puzzle. Chicago was the first. Nashville is likely not the last. Compass has devised this broader scheme designed to spread until America’s open and transparent housing market is replaced by one that works better for a single large brokerage than for buyers and sellers,” the post states. “Zillow will continue its fight to ensure this playbook cannot take root permanently, in Nashville or anywhere else. Nashville buyers and sellers deserve access to a full, transparent market.”