Zillow and MRED have accused each other of breach of contract as controversy over pre-market listings boils over in Chicago.
More than half of all listings in Chicago disappeared from Zillow Wednesday morning as the portal and regional multiple listing service went to war over pre-sold listings.
MRED, an upstart national MLS based in Chicago, announced early Wednesday morning that it had discontinued Zillow’s feed of listings in the region, citing a dispute related to pre-market listings.
“This morning, MRED terminated Zillow’s access to that property data and requested that Zillow remove from its website any properties that Zillow is no longer licensed to display,” MRED said in a statement. “The continued display of MRED listing data violates Zillow’s license agreement and federal copyright law.”
At the time, the city of Chicago had nearly 5,000 active listings. Immediately after that, listings began disappearing, hundreds at a time, and as of around noon Central time, the number of active listings hit a low of 699, a decrease of 86% of the number of active listings.
Many of the remaining listings came from eXp Realty and NextHome, two companies that signed listing feed agreements with Zillow last year. The other properties were from EXIT Realty and were sold by owner.
Participate in the INMAN Intel Index Survey
About an hour later, Zillow had 2,070 active listings in Chicago. This represents about 42 percent of the list before the feed was reduced.
Brokered listing feed agreements have historically been a backup plan to ensure Zillow has a source for listings in the event its direct listing feed with the MLS is interrupted, as was the case in Chicago.
EXIT Realty did not respond to a request for comment on whether it has a listing feed agreement with Zillow.
Zillow has been encouraging brokerages to sign their own listing agreements, including through a website called BeOnZillow.
But Compass International Holdings, which accounts for about a third of Chicago’s publicly traded stocks, ended its listing agreement with Zillow earlier this month.
MRED and Zillow disagree over which one is actually violating an agreement set in place to facilitate the flow of active listed properties out of Chicago.
Zillow said MRED’s licensing agreement allows it to block listings initiated on its private listing network before they are widely distributed through the MLS or portals like Zillow and Redfin.
Zillow acknowledged in a statement that the supply of properties in Chicago is decreasing.
“Chicago home buyers and sellers have far worse access to the housing market this morning than they did yesterday because the local MLS has decided that the profits of one giant brokerage firm are more important than their ability to realize the American Dream,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
Zillow last week sued MRED and Compass in a federal antitrust lawsuit alleging that the parties were working together to cut off Zillow’s access to the Chicagoland listing.
The company asked the court to prevent MRED from blocking access to the listing, saying it would cause “irreparable harm” to the company.
“Without an injunction, Zillow would be forced to abandon its transparency-promoting practices and support competitors against its will, or lose the essential listings it needs to compete, all of which would degrade Zillow’s service and cause irreparable harm to Zillow’s platform, business, goodwill, and reputation,” the company said in a court filing earlier this week.
This is breaking news and will be updated.
Email Taylor Anderson
