A federal judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order requiring MRED to restore access to Zillow’s real estate listings.
In a major, if temporary, legal victory for Zillow, a federal judge on Friday ordered Chicago’s multiple listing service to restore its portal’s access to MLS-derived listings, a Zillow spokesperson told Inman.
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MRED MLS took action earlier this week to block Zillow’s access to its real estate listing data feed. These listings power Zillow and are viewed by hundreds of millions of consumers each month. A judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing MRED from reducing its feed to Zillow, and full supply of listings was restored within hours of the oral order, a spokesperson said.
Shortly after MRED removed Zillow’s feed, more than 60 percent of all active listings in Chicago disappeared from the platform. Across MRED’s main coverage area, which includes all of Illinois and parts of Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin, Zillow said in court documents it has lost more than half of its total listings.
“Today’s ruling is an important first step for Chicago home buyers, sellers, and agents harmed by MRED and Compass’ coordinated efforts to reduce transparency in the housing market,” a Zillow spokesperson said in a statement. “During the housing price crisis, industry heavyweights conspired to hide property information, stifle competition, and steer consumers to a single, powerful broker.”
“The court quickly recognized what was at stake, not just for Zillow, but for everyone looking to find or sell a home across Illinois and beyond,” the statement continued. “We will continue to fight to ensure that this anti-consumer behavior is not allowed to take root forever.”
MRED’s decision to reduce its Zillow feed led to a marketing onslaught from Compass International Holdings, Redfin and others seeking to capitalize on the temporary decline in Zillow’s active listings.
Other real estate platforms maintained access to MRED’s complete listings, offering thousands more listings than Zillow even during the feed cuts.
The ruling came in a lawsuit Zillow filed against MRED and Compass as the three companies battled over Zillow’s attempts to ban listings for violating the portal’s listing access standards. This standard prohibits listings from the portal if they were publicly sold before reaching the MLS and Zillow.
Zillow instituted and began enforcing this policy last year in response to the growing number of brokerages building privately listed networks. This effort was primarily driven by Compass.
The judge’s ruling Friday, which has not yet been documented and filed in the court docket, does not resolve Zillow’s larger claims that Compass colluded with MRED to boycott the portal over pre-sale listing rules.
Compass and MRED said in separate statements that Friday’s ruling was a mixed bag for Zillow.
“The core issue remains the same: Zillow wants the benefit of receiving MLS listing data while reserving the right to discriminate against certain legitimate listings, sellers, and brokers that do not support its marketing strategies,” MRED said in a statement. “The court’s decision makes clear that Zillow cannot ignore its licensing obligations and MRED’s reasonable rules that benefit all participants in our collaborative marketplace and undermine the value of MLS.”
Zillow does not have a pre-market listing policy in place in Chicago, and the company said it will not enforce the policy there in the future following Friday’s ruling.
MRED cut its Zillow feed after the portal enforced rules and refused to display a total of nine listings from Compass agents in Florida, Georgia and California. These listings started out as private listings and eventually were widely distributed through the MLS.
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin told Inman in a text message that Zillow needs to actively display these nine listings on its platform.
“Why is Zillow fighting the listing ban so hard? Because they want to control how sellers and their agents market their homes,” Levkin wrote. “We have a problem with this, with a judge ordering all nine banned Compass listings back to Zillow, as well as a court ordering Zillow to no longer ban listings from MRED!”
Update: This article was updated with additional notes and background after publication.
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