The fierce competition for listings gets hotter

HousingWire

On today’s episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Senior Real Estate Reporter Brooklee Han about the competition for listings between Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) who are spreading beyond their usual geographical boundaries, as well as listing portals like Zillow and CoStar.  Related to this episode:  CoStar targets Zillow Preview in amicus filing over MRED feed https://www.housingwire.com/articles/costar-zillow-mred-brief/  MLSs compete on rules and partnerships as listing control shifts https://www.housingwire.com/articles/mls-strategies-listing-control/  HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q  More info about HousingWire https://lnk.bio/housingwire  The Top 5:  Existing home sales beat estimates, what it signals for 2026 https://www.housingwire.com/articles/existing-home-sales-beat-estimates-what-it-signals-for-2026/  Synergy One to merge with APM; Steve Majerus named president https://www.housingwire.com/articles/apm-synergy-one-merger/  MLSs compete on rules and partnerships as listing control shifts https://www.housingwire.com/articles/mls-strategies-listing-control/  Outgoing Frank Cassidy on running FHA more like a business https://www.housingwire.com/articles/cassidy-leaves-fha-reforms/  May inflation climbs to 4.2%, Fed likely stays on hold https://www.housingwire.com/articles/cpi-may-energy-inflation/

Transcript

00:07Welcome, everyone. My guest today is senior real estate reporter, Brooklyn Khan, to talk

00:12about the competition for listings that we see happening now between multiple listing

00:16services who are spreading beyond their usual geographical boundaries, as well as listing

00:22portals like Zillow and CoStar, and what this means for agents and consumers. Before we

00:26jump in, here's the recap of the top five trending stories on HousingWire.com. First is

00:32Logan's article on existing home sales and what that means for the industry. Next, we

00:37have Synergy One merging with APM, and Brooklyn's article on MLS is competing for listings control.

00:43Next, we have the interview that senior mortgage reporter Flavia did, Flavia Furlan-Nunez, did

00:48with Frank Cassidy. He's the outgoing FHA commissioner, and he was talking about running the FHA more

00:54like a business. And lastly, our coverage of the May inflation report, which was huge. You

00:59can read all of those stories and more with the subscription, and you can get a 20% discount

01:04by using the code podcast20. Brooklyn, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for

01:09having me. Well, listen, there is so much going on in real estate, and you wrote a story yesterday

01:14on how the MLSs are competing on rules and partnerships. And to me, this was such an important

01:21story because it really, it got past a lot of the headlines to be like, what does it mean?

01:26And I think that that's super important for our audience. So I wanted to ask you, first

01:29of all, how did you go about reporting the story? What were you trying to figure out with

01:34this? Yeah, absolutely. So it really, for me, came to a point last week when Maris, which

01:41is an MLS that serves kind of Missouri and Southern Illinois, offered free subscriptions and

01:51things like that to members across the country. But the way it was framed was posing Maris as

02:00an alternative to MRED, the MLS in the Chicagoland area that pulled its listing feed from Zillow

02:09back in May in the middle of a lawsuit that's going on between Zillow, MRED, and Compass.

02:15And Maris was basically saying, look, if you don't want your listing feed pulled from Zillow

02:22and you are unable to or cannot set up a direct listing feed with Zillow, join our MLS for

02:30free and your listings will continue going to all the portals no matter what kind of happens

02:37basically with any other MLS in the country. And so that...

02:42Pretty big move there.

02:43Yeah. For me, that felt like a sign that there's a competition happening within the MLS space

02:49that I don't remember seeing in my five years of covering the industry. I talked to a lot

02:55of folks and they're like, yeah, this is a level of competition we haven't seen in a

02:59while. And so I wanted to kind of get to the heart of it. And for that, anytime I have

03:05an

03:05MLS question looking at history, I usually go to Saul Klein. He's an industry veteran. He's

03:10been around the real estate and MLS space for five decades now. He's currently the CEO of

03:16San Diego MLS. And I sat down with him to kind of talk about what's going on, how this

03:23kind of compares to things in the past. And he's great at providing these high level perspectives

03:29on things. And so the way he sees it with the competition and things going on with MLSs,

03:37expanding private listing networks nationwide, opening up membership for real estate professionals

03:42outside their traditional service areas, launching joint ventures like what Bright MLS has done

03:48with Ocucel. You know, this is kind of split the industry into about four different camps.

03:54And this includes like the greater real estate and housing industry. And those include brokerage

04:00controlled listing networks that are looking for more power over their own inventory, portal driven

04:06consumer platforms like Zillow, who are really interested in kind of a comprehensive public

04:13marketplace, the MLSs that are trying to preserve a cooperative marketplace, and then regulators

04:21and lawmakers that are stepping into the MLS space, which is a space that traditionally used to govern

04:27itself. And Klein felt like these camps are all looking for different ways to answer the question of who

04:34controls a listing. And that's something that's come up a lot lately throughout the real estate brokerage

04:41space. And in the MLS space, because a lot of folks are, I guess, waking up to the fact that

04:51these vendors and other portals and other places where their listings get sent are then using that

04:57data to make money and monetize it in some way. And so the listing has this thing of value, not

05:04just to

05:04the seller who is hoping to, you know, make proceeds off the sale of their home, but the data of

05:10the listing

05:10itself is a commodity that some people are trying to use. And that's something that, you know, has kind

05:20of evolved over time, but is kind of coming to a head right now.

05:23So one of the reasons it's coming to a head and to back up in case no one knows, someone

05:27out there

05:27doesn't know an MLS is multiple listing service. And it's this is how, you know, traditionally, this is

05:33how you've you see any listings, you had to sign up for this. And the reason everything's changing right

05:39now is that the National Association of Realtors has has really kind of changed. I think in in your in

05:46your

05:47story, you talk about de-risking the idea that the MLS is can make more decisions about what they want

05:53to do.

05:54And it's leaving more more to the local decision making, which is different before we again before the

06:01commission lawsuit settlements. And before some of those recent things, we just had a much more, you know,

06:08traditional program in place that hadn't changed for a long time. And so now we just have a lot of

06:13disruption. I love the point that you made about the data. And the fact that just the very content and

06:20the data of

06:20the of the listing itself is worth something. It's not just the lead of the listing.

06:25Absolutely. And I think, you know, we've seen how all of the different portals use that listing and use that

06:34data.

06:34And some brokerages are waking up now and saying, hey, like, that's our content, we created it.

06:41And so we're seeing kind of this push and pull between the brokerages and the MLS is that we haven't

06:47seen really, you know, in the past 10 to 15 years. And that is kind of causing some of the

06:55change in the

06:55MLS space right now. A lot of them are reviewing and changing rules, changing definitions of things.

07:02And they're able to do that because of NAR de-risking and kind of handing over a lot of rulemaking

07:08and rule

07:09enforcement to the local MLSs. And, you know, all of this change is kind of in all of these competing

07:19forces. For Saul Klein, he said there are five competing forces currently trying to influence the

07:25MLS industry, litigation, regulation, legislation, consolidation, and innovation. And these five

07:32forces are kind of pushing and pulling the MLS industry in different ways with those four competing

07:39camps, trying to figure out what comes next of who controls the listing. And it's really unclear where

07:45things are going to go. And so with this, I kind of then went to the Council of MLSs, which

07:53is the

07:54MLS Trade Association, sort of the NAR of the MLS space, if you will. And I spoke with them. And

08:02they

08:06believe that kind of the growth and the competition that's happening in the MLS space

08:12should lead to the marketplace being stronger and not fragmented. And I think fragmentation is a

08:19real fear that a lot of people have right now. And they really, you know, they're excited to see

08:27growth and change and competition in this space. And they want to help kind of foster growth and

08:33development for these MLSs. But they said it shouldn't come at the expense of transparency and

08:40reliability. And in talking to a lot of folks in the MLS space, they want and believe that the MLS

08:46should be kind of this infrastructure, the skeleton that the entire housing industry kind of operates

08:52off of, because it is the source of true data and true information. And that information is so

08:58important to appraisers. It's important for a secondary market. It's important for lenders to know.

09:04It's important for consumers to know as they go to purchase a house. So there are no,

09:09you know, surprises when something is, you know, 500 square feet smaller than it supposedly was

09:14online. Or, you know, the lot line is different than what they originally were told. And so I think

09:22that is something that I see MLS and a lot of MLS executives really feel is important is that, you

09:30know,

09:30as we have this growth, as we have competition and diversification and models that the MLS still

09:37retains its core function of being the source of true, accurate, timely, verified data.

09:43I think that accurate and timely, I think this is, you know, it's the standards that they talked about

09:48in this piece, different people that you talked to that, like, there has to be something, or there

09:53doesn't have to be, but like, for the for home buyers, for home sellers, like having an accurate

10:01listing, having something that is timely, and having some standards around how we all report

10:06those things, so that we're really can, people can compare apples to apples. I think it's, I think

10:11it's, you know, you just don't think about it, because we've had this in place so long that,

10:15yeah, you know, when I go to the listing, I know exactly what's going to be there. And I can

10:20then

10:20compare it. If you start to lose that, you can understand how that's maybe not going to end up

10:24well for anybody. Absolutely. You know, I always hear the NIR talk about kind of the Wild West,

10:31and that really does feel like kind of a Wild West scenario of, you know, how is the industry going

10:38to, the housing industry, a whole going to function if it's almost impossible to know if the information

10:44you're seeing about a property is accurate, because then how can you price properly? How can you,

10:50you know, doing a proper appraisal? And, you know, how, how does then the secondary market and

10:56lenders continue to kind of function as well? So definitely a lot to think about there with that

11:02one. A lot to think about. And interesting to see that MLS reaction. Let's move to another story that

11:08is on the same topic in a different vein, right, which is this ongoing battle that we see among some

11:15of the companies and the what we would call the portals, right? So Zillow, who is who so we have

11:22CoStar, we have Zillow, we have MRED, we have, who else is it Compass within this one story. So maybe

11:30you can walk us through what happened. Just today, you reported this CoStar targets Zillow preview

11:36in Amicus filing over MRED feed. So this is them adding to an ongoing lawsuit already that their

11:44CoStar is weighing in. Of course, CoStar has homes.com competition to Zillow. So tell us what

11:52we found out in this story. Yeah, absolutely. So back in mid May, actually, roughly about a month

11:58ago, Zillow filed an antitrust lawsuit against MRED, which is that Chicagoland area MLS and Compass

12:04International Holdings, which is the parent company of Compass, all the anywhere brands, and at

12:11Properties Christie's International Real Estate. And in that lawsuit, Zillow accused MRED and Compass

12:19of conspiring to withhold the MRED listing feed from Zillow. And earlier back in April, MRED and Compass

12:30announced a partnership, which was part of MRED basically expanding its own internal private listing

12:37network nationwide. And Compass also at the same time said it would be giving MRED a feed to all of

12:45its listings nationwide, again, kind of opening this MLS up to geographic areas that are not its

12:54traditional service area of the greater Chicagoland area. And as I mentioned earlier, MRED did ultimately

13:04end up cutting off Zillow's listing feed back toward the end of May. And that ended up in a temporary

13:16restraining order, with MRED being ordered to restore Zillow's listing feed. And in turn, Zillow could not

13:23enforce its listing access standards policy, which it created back in March of 2024, saying that if a

13:33listing was publicly marketed for more than 24 hours before being available on sites that use VOW or IDX

13:45internet data exchange feeds to power their listing feeds, the listing would then be pulled from Zillow.

13:53And so this kind of created an issue with MRED's existing private listing network. And that's kind of

14:00where all of this kind of started. And in the lawsuit, Zillow filed a motion for a preliminary injunction

14:08seeking to prevent MRED from suspending its listing feed. There's a hearing for this motion that's

14:14scheduled for early July. They're currently engaged in an expedited discovery for this. And as part of that,

14:22CoStar filed an amicus brief in opposition to Zillow's motion. And CoStar claims that Zillow's motion

14:34is part of a scheme to expand its ecosystem and replace the MLS system. And that they argue that

14:42Zillow Preview, which Zillow launched back in March of this year, which is its pre-marketing

14:50product, essentially, that it launched in partnership with Keller Williams, REMAX Home

14:57Services of America, United Real Estate Inside, which allows agents and brokers and their sellers

15:04at those companies, as well as now several dozen other, I think it's over 60 companies that have

15:10signed on to pre-market their listings in kind of a coming soon type thing. As long as that coming

15:16soon status complies with local MLS rules. And so CoStar is claiming that with Zillow Preview,

15:26Zillow is going to fragment the market further, instead of creating a more transparent market.

15:32And it says that the pre-marketing that Zillow is now allowing agents and brokers to do on its site

15:38is

15:39equivalent to what Zillow has said it doesn't like about private listing networks. Zillow has obviously

15:47come out with a statement saying that this is not true. And they're kind of going back and forth on

15:53this one. I think it wasn't that surprising that CoStar came out with this amicus filing because CoStar,

16:00as you said, owns homes.com. And CoStar and Zillow are currently locked in their own legal battle

16:06over alleged copyright infringement related to photos of rental listings. So, you know, it's,

16:14I thought it was an interesting argument made by CoStar in this filing. And again, kind of not

16:21surprising given the history between the two companies that CoStar was looking to get involved

16:24in this lawsuit. Yeah, these, these guys are, are bitter rivals, we could say, or at least a big

16:30rivals. I do think their argument that like, Hey, you can't say that, uh, private listings on,

16:36on the one hand, private listings aren't good for consumers. And then you have Zillow preview,

16:40which is basically, you know, uh, at least a short-term private listing that you allow for some

16:45things. I think that's interesting. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is here because,

16:50um, you know, if you're, if you're a company and I, I believe, um, uh,

16:53saw a client said this in yours, it's like, if you're not adjusting to this new, um, the new

17:00opportunities that you have, if the MLSs aren't, but I would also say if it, if you, as a, um,

17:04you

17:04know, either as a listing portal or the, um, real estate firms themselves, I mean, things are changing

17:11fast. You better be on the train one way or the other here to make sure that your listings get

17:16seen,

17:16whether, you know, you've got to navigate now, like, is it going to be shown on this portal?

17:20You know, does my, uh, MLS, you know, allow that does my company allow that does not allow that

17:26it's a lot. Yeah. There's a lot of regulation to work through. We also have state legislators

17:31getting involved, um, with different laws being passed kind of restricting or looking to protect

17:38consumers regarding private listings and making sure that disclosures are really clear with sellers

17:43about, you know, what risks they're potentially assuming when a listing is private. Um, so,

17:51you know, legislate state legislators are weighing in, um, and it's, you know, it's a lot to consider,

17:57but I think sitting still and waiting to see what happens is probably not the right answer. Um,

18:05you know, you want to make sure that your listings are getting out there being seen. Um, and, you know,

18:11the decision you might make might not be the right one. And I think that might be the case for

18:16a lot

18:17of folks because it's, everything is moving so quickly and we just don't necessarily know

18:22what's going to happen next basically, which is why it's such an exciting time.

18:26It is. Well, I, you know, I, I'd like to, I thought one of the points that you made in

18:30the, um,

18:30uh, in the article about the MLS is to me actually threw this into really great relief,

18:36which is that technology might make this whole question, this whole debate moot pretty soon.

18:42Maybe walk us through what that argument is. Yeah, absolutely. So this came from another

18:47conversation I had with, um, Mark Sterbko, who, uh, is an industry attorney and the managing attorney

18:53of Sterbko law group, uh, down in New Orleans. But, you know, his point was that you're able to use

19:00an LLM AI agent, you know, your Gemini, your chat GPT, uh, and it can go and scrape data off

19:07of all these sites, even ones with private, private listing networks and aggregate that

19:12with the stuff that's already publicly available through IDX and VOW data feeds and make it into,

19:18you know, this lovely kind of display for you or report of all the listings available,

19:23uh, or all the properties available and, you know, a certain neighborhood or

19:28a certain, um, zip code that fit whatever your kind of search parameters are. And so,

19:35you know, that, unless, depending on how quickly that technology develops and the protections that

19:42get put in place on some of these private listing networks, you know, that could make some of this

19:47argument completely obsolete. And, you know, it's, it won't necessarily really matter whose site has more

19:54traffic or anything because, you know, we're already seeing consumers using these LLMs in their home

20:00search and their home buying and selling journeys. So what's then preventing them from just going and

20:06asking, you know, chat GPT or Claude for a list of all the homes that are available in the area

20:13they're

20:13searching that meet their search parameters. So I think, you know, we're seeing consumer habits evolve

20:19as well with this technology. And that's going to be a whole other thing that the industry is going to

20:23have to adapt to. I think that was such a great point, especially because, um, all of the people,

20:28whether it's, you know, in lawsuits or talking to their legislators or, or, or deciding policy,

20:34companies are looking at like, what's best for the consumer. Well, if the consumer is voting with

20:39their feet to like scrape all the data out there and get it themselves anyway, um, that, that really

20:44does interrupt whatever you're, you know, you might be trying to do as a company or as an industry,

20:49um, to deliver it. It's like, if, if they're going to go around everything that you do and they,

20:54and they can, um, then we're going to have to have a different conversation. Exactly. Yep.

20:59Brooklyn, thank you so much for joining us today, but also just being on top of this. I don't know

21:03anybody who knows the ins and outs of this entire saga. Um, and it's, it's got many different facets

21:10to it. Um, then you do, you live this, you breathe this every day. So thanks for doing such great

21:15coverage on housingwire.com and also for joining me today. Of course. Thanks so much for having me.

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