Battle Of The Listing Sites. Zillow Bans Pocket Listings, While Homes.com Welcomes Them

“Pocket listings”, or “whisper listings,” as they are sometimes referred to, are at the center of a war of words between two of the nation’s largest real estate listings sites — Zillow Z and Homes.com.

Zillow, America’s No.1 residential listings site according to page views, just announced that beginning in May, it would ban “pocket” listings — homes marketed exclusively to a select group of buyers — from appearing on its website. This move escalates a contentious debate within the real estate industry regarding private listings.

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“If a listing is marketed directly to consumers without being listed on the MLS and made widely available where buyers search for homes, it will not be published on Zillow,” the company said on its website. The Zillow statement came on the heels of a National Association of Realtors’ policy that offered sellers the option to delay the widespread advertising of their homes online as long as they listed their homes on multi listing services — a widespread database of all listed properties — within a day of publicly marketing the home.

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Stops Sellers From Cutting Zillow Out

Zillow’s new rule is designed to deter sellers and their agents from circumventing the site to sell homes. Specifically, it would target homes listed on social media or brokerage websites without appearing on multi-listing services. Usually, when pocket listings don't initially sell, they are listed more widely on multi-listing services and Zillow.

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Brokerages Are Divided

Known as the Clear Cooperation Policy, the requirement to list on multi-listing services has been a source of fierce debate within the real estate industry. Platforms such as Zillow and Redfin RDFN and fair housing advocates have supported the requirement, citing transparency and the opportunity for sellers to get the most money for their homes because of the wider access the multi-listing services offer.

However, brokerages such as Compass have argued in favor of pocket listings. CEO Robert Reffkin favors a “3 Phased Marketing Strategy,” mentioning the negative information that multi- listing services include about a house, such as days on the market, price drops, and value estimates, which could harm sales.

Homes.com’s Scathing Criticism Of Zillow

Homes.com has weighed in on the argument. Although the site is not in the top three residential listing sites in the U.S., it is owned by CoStar Group Inc CSGP, the country’s largest commercial listing platform, which owns many different real estate sites such as apartments.com and land.com.

Andy Florence, CEO of Costar Group, sent an email to Homes.com agent subscribers, as reported in HousingWire, criticizing Zillow’s policy as an act of “audacity” and a “power play of epic proportion.” He went so far as to include a link to the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division for agents who feel Zillow’s policy goes too far. “This isn’t about protecting consumers. It’s about protecting Zillow’s ability to profit from your listings by selling your leads to competing agents,” Florence said.

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Florence argued that Zillow was undermining seller choice, claiming that Zillow was “asserting that it, not NAR, not your brokerage, not you the listing agent—and not even the homeowner whose house it is and is paying the commission—should decide how a listing is marketed” and that Zillow’s business model “hijacks your hard-earned listings” by diverting potential buyers to competing agents who pay for leads.

An Opportunity To Seize Ground

Clearly, Homes.com has a lot to gain should agents decide to abandon Zillow and list it. Florence contended that his company “promotes a “Your Listing, Your Lead” philosophy, achieved by only the listing agent’s information on property pages.

It’s not the first time Florence has ruffled competitors’ feathers. In 2023, he sent an e-mail to realtors, criticizing The Wall Street Journal and Realtor.com — both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp — for their coverage of the NAR, stating, “The company that Realtor.com is a part of has been savagely assaulting the National Association of Realtors.”

May the best site win.

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