A week after Zillow drew a hard line on off-market listings, Redfin has rolled out its own ultimatum.
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman penned a short statement, saying “Buyers should see all the listings, and sellers should control how their listing appears online.”
He went on to say that, “Redfin.com will not publish any listings that have been publicly marketed before being shared with all real estate websites via the MLS.”
So sellers can’t actually control their listing if they want it to be syndicated on websites like Redfin.
They need to share it everywhere, immediately, otherwise it won’t show up on Redfin or Zillow going forward.
Redfin Takes a Stand Similar to Zillow
Per Kelman’s statement, a home seller will need to proceed with a standard listing if they want their listing to show up on Redfin.
In other words, you can’t publicly market the property first, then syndicate to Redfin later.
If you do, you won’t be able to enjoy all the traffic sites like Redfin get. Nor will a prospective buyer stumble across your listing that way.
Problem is, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) just unveiled a new option for home sellers known as “delayed marketing” that allows public marketing so long as the property is submitted to the MLS.
This option allows different brokerages to see what’s for sale and share it with their clients.
However, it doesn’t activate IDX syndication, which means websites like Redfin and Zillow don’t get those listings until a later date.
As such, they’d lose out on a lot of listings (and traffic) if a greater number of home sellers chose this option.
Thing is, most sellers don’t and aren’t, so it feels a bit heavy-handed to throw out an ultimatum.
Kelman Calls for New Coming Soon Listing That Hides Days on Market and Price Changes
In addition, in a bid to “encourage” home sellers to put their listings on the MLS and websites like his immediately, Redfin has asked MLSs to create a new “coming-soon designation.”
It would prevent portals like Redfin and Zillow from showing how long a home has been for sale (days on market) and at what prices (if any price changes).
This supports his statement regarding giving control to home sellers.
The idea is sellers are cool with listing everywhere, but might not want to if they’re worried days on market (DOM) or a price cut will make their listing look less attractive to buyers.
Of course, this isn’t transparent and also goes against the thought of looking out for the consumer.
If we’re honest, a listing should contain all pertinent information and history, including price changes and days on market.
Hiding any of these key details would go against the spirit of transparency and possibly negatively affect the home buyer.
Remember, it’s a two-way street and there are both home buyers and home sellers in the equation.
There should be an equal playing field for both. To that end, I do still agree that more exposure for your for-sale listing is a good thing if you want to fetch the highest price in the shortest amount of time.
It’s just that an ultimatum that goes against NAR’s own guidelines seems a bit much, especially when it’s protecting their own interests (pageviews).
[When should I start looking for a home to buy?]
Homes.com Andy Florance Says Portals Should Remain Neutral
One major portal CEO who went against the grain was CoStar Group’s Andy Florance, which operates the portal Homes.com.
While it’s much less popular than Zillow and Redfin, they’ve been spending a ton on advertising to become a major player in the space as well.
And unlike Zillow, they only feature the listing agent’s information on listing pages, instead of selling that space as a lead to outside agents.
In a LinkedIn post, he wrote, “Delayed IDX syndication is allowed under NAR rules. But Zillow is asserting that they, 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.”
“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.”
He added that the portals “must remain neutral,” and that it’s “never acceptable for a real estate portal to threaten agents this way.”
Florance certainly has a point here, especially since the new directives go against NAR.
And ultimatums are never a great way to approach a perceived problem or threat, especially if it’s not even a big issue at the moment.
Again, I still believe max exposure to a real estate listing is good for all involved, and that’s likely going to continue to be the preferred choice for sellers anyway.
But the elephant in the room many don’t consider when assessing the situation is portals like Zillow could eventually offer a self-serve, real estate agent-free option to buy and sell homes.
At the same time, new platforms are coming up that will offer the same. So trying to force a moat might backfire.
While real estate brokerages like Compass might appear greedy now, they might just be attempting to protect their business model from upstarts that squeeze out the agent entirely.
And it is, after all, their listing. Their data. And their choice (along with their client) how to disseminate it.
Read on: 2025 Home Selling Tips to Get Top Dollar for Your Listing
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