The June 8 deadline for Zillow to fall in line with Realtracs’s updated listing rules came and went on Monday, with no immediate disruption or impact on listings.
Rather than suspend Zillow’s access to its MLS data feed as it had threatened, Realtracs said negotiations with the portal remain active and will continue beyond the June 8 expiration date it had been working toward.
The MLS did not set a new deadline.
“Realtracs remains actively engaged in discussions with Zillow and other portal partners regarding our new licensing agreements,” the MLS told RISMedia in a statement. “We believe those discussions are productive and progressing and expect negotiations to continue beyond the June 8 timeline we had originally been working toward. These portals remain in place with Realtracs until negotiations have concluded.”
The statement also reframed the fight around the value of listing data, pointing to the role of AI and large-scale aggregation.
“We remain focused on reaching modernized agreements that reflect the listing information that powers the real estate industry does not appear on its own—it comes from the expertise, effort and investment of brokers and agents working on behalf of their clients,” Realtracs said. “The professionals who create that value should have a meaningful voice in how it is sourced and used in today’s world of artificial intelligence, data aggregation, lead generation platforms and large-scale consumer portals.”
This is the second time Realtracs has pushed its timeline. The MLS first told members on May 27 it would cut off Zillow’s feed on June 1 over the portal’s refusal to comply with new IDX display rules, then extended that date to June 8 as the talks continued.
Zillow, again signaling optimism, said it wanted to keep listings flowing.
“We remain hopeful that we can find a path forward that keeps Nashville listings visible to the millions of buyers who search Zillow every month,” a Zillow spokesperson said. “Our commitment to transparency in real estate is unwavering, and we believe it is possible to honor that commitment while continuing to serve the Nashville market together.”
The issue centers on what the MLS calls a “straightforward requirement” Realtracs issued on April 29: If a seller wants their listing publicly marketed, it must appear in search results that match a buyer’s criteria. Zillow’s rules that ban certain listings previously marketed “privately” or on platforms that require consumers to sign up with a single brokerage run afoul of these rules, Realtracs (and other MLSs) have said.
Compass has lobbied for MLSs to “enforce” the rule in question, which Zillow has called “pretextual” and noted that MLSs only recently began saying that the portal’s rules run afoul of that MLS policy.
Realtracs isn’t the only MLS that has taken this route.
MRED, the MLS serving Chicagoland, suspended Zillow’s feed over the same compliance issue, though Judge John Tharp ordered the feed restored on May 22. Compass—which has feuded with Zillow in the courtroom before—has lobbied multiple MLSs to enforce the rules, and CEO Robert Reffkin publicly thanked Realtracs after its first announcement.
