The threat comes a week after Chicago’s MLS shut down Zillow’s listing feed in the nation’s third-largest city.
Following in the footsteps of Chicago’s Multiple Listing Service, Nashville’s MLS informed its broker members Wednesday that it is preparing to cut off access to all listings on Zillow starting June 1.
RealTrax, which has about 18,000 members and serves Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia, wrote in an email that Zillow’s enforcement of rules against public sales of private listings violates MLS rules.
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The threat follows a similar move last week by MRED, an MLS serving Illinois and parts of Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana, to cut off Zillow’s strongest source of active listed inventory.
“As of today, May 27th, Zillow is the only platform not adhering to the terms of the agreement, and we do not expect this to change given that dozens of Realtracks listings have been banned due to Zillow’s own rules that prevent sellers from choosing how to market their properties,” Realtracks wrote in an email.
The email was shared with Mr. Inman by two separate sources shortly after it was sent, and was confirmed by multiple sources.
In a statement to Inman, Realtracs chief marketing officer Katie St. Francis said, “If Zillow complies with Realtracs’ display rules by the May 31st deadline (and ends the listing ban), we will maintain access to the Realtracs feed.”
When MRED cut off access to Zillow’s data feed last Wednesday, more than half of all listings in MRED’s coverage area disappeared from the platform.
Zillow temporarily restored access to the MRED listing two days later after seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a federal antitrust lawsuit filed against MLS and Compass.
Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the case blocked Zillow from enforcing its private listings policy in zip codes where MRED operated from April 2025 to April 23, 2026, and ordered Zillow to display a small number of listings that it had previously prohibited.
In a statement to Inman, Zillow acknowledged that Realtracks had threatened to cut its feed. The portal also pledged to stay the course and said Compass was making decisions.
“Nashville’s MLS has threatened to ban Nashville-area sellers from Zillow, the most-visited real estate platform in the country, unless they waive the standards we have put in place to ensure buyers can trust what they see on our platform,” the company said in a statement. “This is the same strategy already documented in federal court, a coordinated campaign initiated by Compass CEO Robert Reffkin to pressure MLSs across the country to remove sellers’ listings from Zillow.”
“On Friday, a judge just ordered Chicago’s MLS to restore its listing feed,” the statement continued. “Sellers and buyers in Nashville deserve access to a complete and transparent marketplace. Zillow’s Listing Access Standards exist to protect that. We have no intention of abandoning them.”
Direct data feeds from the nation’s approximately 500 MLSs are the primary way Zillow obtains the listings that power many of its revenue-generating businesses. Zillow also has agreements with brokerage firms that provide property information to the portal.
Historically, brokerage agreements were a backup plan. They prevented Zillow from going completely dark in the nation’s third-largest real estate market while MRED cut off its feed.
In a statement shared with Inman, Benchmark Realty CEO Phillip Cantrell said the company is in discussions with Realtracs and Zillow.
“We are in discussions with both companies and are working professionally to develop solutions that meet our customers’ needs,” Cantrell said in a statement that was shared with more than 1,900 affiliates. “We can feed directly into Zillow so your products are never missed from the site.
“This returns control of our work product back to us,” the statement continued, “where it belongs.”
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