Fierce portal giant competitors Zillow and Realtor.com have announced a new collaboration where, beginning this summer, Zillow Preview pre-market listings will also be available on Realtor.com®—listed as “Realtor.com Preview” listings.
The move, being hailed by the portals in a release as setting “a new standard for pre-market transparency,” will allow buyers to see more homes before they go live on the market regardless of which platform they use or which brokerage they work with.
Zillow Preview launched in March with initial partners Keller Williams, REMAX, HomeServices of America, Side and United Real Estate, and followed in April with another announcement that 28 more brokerages had signed onto the program. The program essentially allows “Coming Soon” listings from participating brokerages to appear exclusively on Zillow platforms before they go on the MLS, with some perks and incentives for agents. Agents and sellers have the option not to report certain metrics during the Zillow Preview phase—most notably, days on market stats and price drops.
The release noted that under the new collaboration, agents will receive the same benefits—including revenue share and other terms—for both their Zillow Preview and Realtor.com Preview listings. Both Zillow Preview and Realtor.com Preview listings will be available at no cost to sellers or agents participating through an enrolled brokerage.
Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman said transparency and buyer and seller choice are at the heart of the deal, as the “real estate market works best when every buyer has access to the same information,” which he called “Zillow’s core belief.”
“Zillow and Realtor.com both are committed to the same principle: sellers deserve maximum exposure from day one, and buyers deserve visibility into every home available to them,” Wacksman continued. “With this collaboration we’re not just expanding reach, we’re creating true seller choice while setting a new industry standard for what transparency in real estate actually looks like for buyers, sellers and agents.”
Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales said the portal prefers all listings—including pre-market listings—“reach the widest possible audience for the benefit of both sellers and buyers,” but “where MLSs don’t yet offer a Coming Soon status, or where brokers choose to syndicate their preview listings directly, we have a responsibility to display those listings as broadly as possible.”
Further agent benefits outlined in the release include that if a qualified Preview connection from either a Zillow Preview or Realtor.com Preview home results in a closed transaction through a qualified partner agent, the listing agent may receive a share of the revenue earned from that transaction, settled through their brokerage. The fee is paid through the collaboration and does not increase consumers’ or agents’ costs, the portals said and commissions remain negotiable between consumers and the agents representing them.
Zillow also noted that StreetEasy (a subsidiary of the portal) is currently exploring a tailored offering, rather than Zillow Preview, for the New York City market.
