Florance wasn’t writing to complain about this practice, though.
He’d set his sights on another target: his company’s chief rival,Zillow.
Two days earlier, Zillow had unveiled anew rule threatening to blacklist scores of homesfrom its well-trafficked website.
The surprise announcement took direct aim at exclusive inventory, also known as secret or hidden home listings.
Zillow said it would permanently ban from its site any listing that had gone through this preview period.
If you’re going to market a home somewhere, the company argued, you have to market iteverywhere.
But Florance wasn’t having it.
Homes.com, Florance told the agents, would happily welcome any listings scorned by Zillow.
“And now everybody, whether they like it or not, they have to have a position.
They have to make some decisions, and they need to act.”
As usual, regular consumers will bear the brunt of these changes.
Finding that dream home could soon become a game of hide and seek.
Many agents don’t bother with exclusive inventory.
Once a listing is live in the MLS, it’s pretty much everywhere.
But agents have other options that are growing more popular.
(Zillow has said that listings can be unbanned if the seller breaks up with their broker.)
But there are problems with Zillow and Redfin’s position.
“It’s a tell.
Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s CEO, doesn’t see it that way.
If that’s the issue, Kelman says he’s fine with dropping that info entirely.
“That will be a challenge for consumers.”
Here’s one thing I’m sure of: This is a mess.
There are more than 500 MLSes around the country, each with its own policies and enforcement mechanisms.
Compass appears unlikely to back down from exclusive inventory, setting up more battles down the line.
“This moment goes beyond a policy it’s about control versus choice,” Reffkin wrote.
But government action is hardly guaranteed, and it could be years before anything happens.
In the interim, expect the fight to get uglier.
And I think everybody does, but emotions are just running high right now.”
James Rodriguezis a senior reporter on Business Insider’s Discourse team.
