Other popular home-listing portals Redfin, Realtor.com, Homes.com deliver the same result.
The house is “off-market.”
The condoisfor sale, though, with an asking price of $999,000.
This is no accident or failure on the part of the seller’s broker.
The new reality poses the greatestthreat to Zillowand other portals that subsist on an unfettered flow of data.
The day of reckoning for search portals like Zillow is a long way off.
And it’s far from the only company employing this tactic.
After months of debate,NAR said in late March that it would hold firm sort of.
), but sellers and their agents have various reasons for slow-rolling their listings.
(That San Francisco condo I mentioned earlier is at this stage.)
The third phase is the all-hands-on-deck approach: The listing goes live in all the typical online outlets.
Compass likens this road map to testing a product with a smaller audience before launch.
A limited release may also appeal to sellers concerned about privacy.
“At the end of the day, everyone involved has a financial dog in this fight.”
Search portals draw millions of visitors each month with home listings supplied by brokerages and the MLSes.
In many cases, Zillow won’t connect you with the listing agent who represents the seller.
The free flow of listings doesn’t just benefit the giant search portals.
They can convince agents to come into the fold and sway clients by touting their exclusive inventory.
They can also monetize leads through their own websites rather than handing those opportunities to another search portal.
In a tight market where every day matters, that’s a seductive sell.
Keeping listings in-house could lead to big bucks for mega brokers.
“A brokerage’s job is to provide value to their agents,” DelPrete tells me.
“Right now, Compass is providing value to agents.”
There is a chance that these changes will only register as a minor disruption for Zillow and the like.
“I mean, shoot, there are ‘SNL’ skits on Zillow,” Capezza tells me.
“It’s synonymous with real estate.
Zillow makes a similar argument: Just follow the consumers.
For now, they’re scrolling through the search portals.
But there are also clear reasons for concern for Zillow, Redfin, and their ilk.
Four years ago, DelPrete wrote a blog post outlining thebiggest threats to the search portals.
Exclusive inventory was No.
If even a few lean heavily into exclusive listings, they could trigger a domino effect across the industry.
It wasn’t perfect.
That era may be fading.
“This is happening.
It has been happening.
And it’s turning into a significant competitive advantage for Compass.”
James Rodriguezis a senior reporter on Business Insider’s Discourse team.
