Real estate giants crack down on exclusive 'off-market' home listings in major shift for buyers
Two major real estate marketplaces are making big changes to what home listings can appear on their websites.
Zillow and Redfin are both taking aim at listings of homes up for sale that have been publicly marketed prior to being entered into the multiple listing service (MLS), taking steps to bar them from their respective platforms.
In April, Zillow unveiled new "listing access standards" for its site under which the real estate marketplace said it will not publish listings if they are "marketed directly to consumers without being listed on the MLS and made widely available where buyers search for homes" within one business day.
The company has argued that a listing "marketed to any buyer should be marketed to every buyer" and that consumers "deserve fair access to listings without having to get access behind a velvet rope controlled by any one company."
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Zillow began sending out notifications of listings in large U.S. markets that don’t meet them to agents starting in late May, with each one getting recorded as a violation.
At the end of June, Zillow will bar an agent’s third noncompliant listing and any listings by the agent that violate its listing access standards from its platform as well as Trulia "for the life of the listing agreement between that listing broker and seller," according to the company.
Its new standards are being implemented "in phases" with a national expansion taking place over the summer.
Zillow said the new policy affects all listings of for-sale homes "subject to an exclusive for-sale listing agreement between a broker and a seller."
The new listing access standards "are consistent with NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy and reflects our belief in fair access for all," according to the company.
The Clear Cooperation Policy mandates the sharing of listings on the MLS within one business day of public marketing. The option for sellers to delay the marketing of their homes on the MLS is slated to come into force in September, the NAR announced earlier this year.
There are, however, some exemptions to Zillow’s new listing access standards policy.
The site will allow home listings that were "only shared among agents within the listing brokerage and the seller has signed a waiver or opt-out form" as well as "delayed marketing" and "coming soon" listings uploaded to the MLS.
Additionally, listings of newly built homes marketed by their builder, rental properties and "for sale by owner" homes will not be subject to Zillow’s new rule surrounding public marketing, the company said.
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Fellow real estate marketplace Redfin is taking a similar stance.
CEO Glenn Kelman said in a mid-April Redfin post that the platform "will not publish any listings that have been publicly marketed before being shared with all real estate websites via the MLS."
The company is also calling for the MLS to set up a "coming-soon" designation that "precludes" search sites from displaying the amount of time a home has been on the market and their prices, according to the post.
Redfin believes "all buyers should be able to see all listings," Kelman said.
The real estate marketplace will start implementing its policy barring listings that were publicly marketed ahead of being shared on the MLS beginning in September, a Redfin spokesperson told FOX Business.
"Delayed marketing exempt listings will be displayed on Redfin as long as they’re shared in the MLS and disseminated to sites like Redfin through a Virtual Office Website (VOW) where buyers can access them," the spokesperson added.
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Zillow and Redfin are some of the biggest online real estate marketplaces, hosting millions of listings on their sites.
Zillow Group reported that its apps and sites notched 227 million average monthly unique users during the first quarter, while Redfin said its platforms saw 46 million.