The Battle Over Listings Has Intensified and Shifted

Question: Can you explain the latest news about partnerships between brokerages and websites like Redfin and Zillow for pre-market inventory?

Answer:

The fight over listings has shifted from theory to reality. Major brokerages, portals, and platforms are actively reshaping where listings appear, what data is shared, and who controls it. For buyers and sellers, the biggest risk isn’t who wins, it’s what gets lost if the market becomes fragmented.

Last year, I wrote about the battle raging in the real estate industry and the growing tension around private listings and pre-market marketing rules.

That battle hasn’t slowed down. It escalated.

What seems like a debate about marketing has become a massive fight over who controls listing data and the quality/accuracy of the information buyers and sellers have available to them.

What’s Actually Happening: Three Competing Forces

There are three competing forces:

1. Certain brokerages are pushing private listings and pre-market marketing strategies. Their pitch to sellers is about more control and price testing, at the expense of less exposure. They want to own and control the listing data in the early phases of a multi-phased sale process.

2. MLS platforms, the entry point for “on market” listings, are built on a cooperative agreement between regional brokerages as a single, definitive source of truth and data accuracy with a common set of “fair play” rules. The MLS system breaks down when the listing market becomes fragmented and the data becomes unreliable.

3. Real estate portals (e.g. Zillow) which capture the most consumer eyeballs and clicks, depend on listings from brokerages that flow to them via MLSs. They have promoted similar “fair play” and full access priorities as the MLSs to prevent listing source fragmentation.

The Latest Moves: Odd Partnerships and Zillow Kickbacks

After months of posturing from brokerages and real estate portals about why their values were in the best interest of the consumer, the latest phase of this battle is a series of unusual (awkward) partnerships for pre-market listings between:

• Redfin (now Rocket Companies) and Compass (including its associated brands like @properties, Century 21, Christies, Sotheby’s, and Coldwell Banker)

• Zillow and Keller Williams, REMAX, HomeServices of America, Side and United Real Estate

• Realtor.com and Homes.com and eXp

Within the partnerships, portals are offering brokerages the ability to provide limited market exposure for a listing without collecting information like price history/changes and days on market that the MLS and all portals track for “on market” listings.

Zillow’s press release mentions “revenue participation” where the listing agent will receive a share of revenue Zillow earns from the transaction if it’s closed within Zillow’s preferred agent network. Hmmm…sounds like a kickback to me? Something Zillow is already being sued for in their mortgage business.

This Matters More Than It Seems

This isn’t just an industry turf war. It directly affects things consumers rely on.

What homes you actually see. If listings are marketed privately first (or only), many buyers never see them. Your access to inventory becomes dependent on which agent you use (and their brokerage). And homes that don’t hit the market may not sell for their full market value.

It’s a major shift from the traditional system in which almost everything was broadly and publicly marketed.

How accurate market data is. This is the most underappreciated issue, in my opinion.

Example: a home is marketed on “private” platforms and pre-market portals for 70 days, doesn’t sell, then goes “on market” through MLS and sells in four days. The public record will always show four days on market. Multiply that out across hundreds of thousands of listings and the market gets distorted for buyers and sellers.

Comparable sales are also less reliable for sellers trying to value/price their home. Is a pre-market sale with limited market exposure the true market value?

The Core Debate, Simplified

There are two main schools of thought:

View #1: Protect the cooperative system (MLS model)

• All listings (with some exceptions) should be entered in MLS when a sale starts

• Data should be complete, reliable, and accessible

• Transparency is an overall net benefit to consumers

A complete, transparent database of record creates:

• Accurate pricing

• Equitable access

• Efficient markets

View #2: Give brokers full control

• The listing agent (and seller) decides how to market

• Private and phased marketing is a feature, not a flaw

• The MLS should not control distribution

Brokers should control client listing decisions and data because:

• Sellers hire their broker, not the MLS, to sell their home

• Sellers maximize their sale when marketing strategy is flexible and customized

My Take, From Inside the Industry

I’ll keep it simple: Fragmentation is bad for consumers.

At scale, private and fragmented markets hurt buyers and sellers:

• Buyers see less inventory

• Sellers get less exposure

• Market data becomes less reliable

• Access becomes less equitable

Private listings are not inherently bad. In fact, private, pre-market marketing strategies can create excellent outcomes for some sellers.

However, brokerages (and now portals like Zillow) are pushing agents/sellers toward a blanket pre-market, on-market phased approach without consideration for the use cases where it does and does not make sense for individual sellers.

Certain brokerages (and now some consumer portals) can capture a huge competitive advantage by gaining a critical mass of pre-market, private (fragmented) listings so the incentive structure at the “corporate” level is volume, not value (to consumers).

The Bottom Line

This is no longer a theoretical debate over what is best for consumers or the industry. The real estate market is fragmenting quickly for buyers and listing strategies for sellers are becoming more varied, sometimes camouflaging corporate priorities.

With good information and high-quality relationships, consumers can maximize their experience in the real estate market.

As an industry, I hope we do better.

If you’d like to discuss buying, selling, investing, or renting, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected].|

We have access to the most pre and off-market listings across the DMV of any brokerage and are happy to share what’s available with anybody who asks.

Below are some of our team’s pre/off-market listings, details and additional listings available by request:

• Westover – 4BR/2BA/2,000sqft – Detached Single Family (2000) – 23rd St N Arlington VA 22205

• Green Valley – 5BR/4.5BA/3,000sqft – Detached Single Family (2020) – 24th St S Arlington VA 22206

• Ballston – 4BR/3.5BA/2,400sqft – Townhouse (2008) – N George Mason Dr Arlington VA 22203

• Ballston – 4BR/3.5BA+office/4,000 sqft – Four Townhouses (2026/2027) – 11th St N Arlington VA 22201

• Rosslyn – 2BR/2BA/1,800sqft – Condo (2021) – 1781 N Pierce St Arlington VA 22209

• Rosslyn – 3BR/2.5BA/2,400sqft – Condo (1986) – 1530 Key Blvd Arlington VA 22209

• Williamsburg – 6BR/5.5BA/5,500 sqft – Detached Single Family (2026) – 27th St N Arlington VA 22207

• Yorktown – 6BR/6.5BA/6,000+ sqft – Detached Single Family (2026) – N Greencastle St Arlington VA 22207