Everything you need to know about Zillow’s listing war with MRED and Compass

The battle between Zillow, Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) and Compass International Holdings, reached a zenith this week when MRED suspended its IDX and VOW listing feeds to Zillow and Trulia. This came after the portal allegedly refused to cure what the MLS called a “material breach” of its license agreements. MRED claims that, according to its licensing agreement with Zillow, the portal must display all of the listings MRED supplies it with.

Here’s are the significant happenings from the beginning:

• MRED had warned Zillow of its plan to pull the listing feeds earlier in the week, causing Zillow to file a motion for a preliminary injunction asking the court overseeing its antitrust lawsuit against MRED and Compass to prevent MRED from terminating its listing access while the lawsuit proceeds. The lawsuit, which was filed in mid-May alleges that the Chicagoland MLS and the nation’s largest brokerage conspired to withhold listing data and pressure Zillow to carry private “hidden” listings nationwide. 

• Both the lawsuit and MRED’s decision to suspend its listing data feeds to Zillow stem from Zillow’s Listing Access Standards policy, which the portal first announced in early April of 2025. The policy bans listings that are publicly marketed for more than one day before being available for display on sites powered by IDX or VOW data feeds.

• Just prior to Zillow beginning to roll out enforcement of its policy late last June, Compass filed a lawsuit against Zillow, claiming that the portal was breaking federal antitrust laws with its policy.  “To protect its market dominance, Zillow has retaliated against competitive threats by enacting an exclusionary policy,” Compass argued in its lawsuit. The policy directly threatened listings Compass was marketing through its three-phased marketing strategy.

• In July 2025, Compass asked the court to prevent Zillow from enforcing its policy. This ask culminated in a four day hearing in late November 2025, which ultimately resulted in a judge denying Compass’s motion, enabling Zillow to continue enforcing the policy while the suit proceeded.
  
• In mid-March 2026, a little over a month after this ruling, Compass moved to dismiss the suit. At the time, Compass said it chose to dismiss the case after Zillow clarified that listings publicly marketed first on Compass-owned websites or on Redfin would no longer automatically be banned from Zillow under its Listing Access Standards policy. The clarification came alongside Zillow’s rollout of “Zillow Preview,” a pre-marketing listings product.
  
• Like the tension between Zillow and Compass, the current dispute between Zillow and MRED has been brewing for nearly just as long. While Zillow began enforcing its listing access standards on June 30, 2025, at this time it was not enforcing the policy everywhere, as it began a phased rollout of the policy. According to a Zillow spokesperson, one of the “very last” markets Zillow was working to launch its policy in was Chicago, due to MRED’s internal private listing network (PLN), which MRED launched in 2016. The PLN allows brokers and their sellers to pre-market listings to other MLS participants before making the listings fully public. 

• In early November 2025, however, MRED sent an email to the managing brokers in its network letting them know that the MRED team was aware that some of them may have received phone calls from Zillow regarding MRED’s PLN. According to the email obtained by HousingWire, MRED stated that based on Zillow’s policy, “certain PLN listings [may] not be displayed on Zillow’s property search websites.”
  
• At the time, a Zillow spokesperson told HousingWire that Zillow had been attempting to work with MRED regarding its PLN listings since the spring of 2025 and that they had not yet sent policy violation warnings to brokers in the MRED service area. 

• Later that month, the two were again at odds over a report Zillow published claiming that homes in majority-white neighborhoods in Chicago are more than twice as likely to be listed privately than homes in majority-non-white neighborhoods. In the report, Zillow claimed that its findings highlighted “how private listing systems can unintentionally reinforce racial segregation and restrict access to housing opportunities.” The report warned that if the usage of private listing networks increases in certain areas it could “amplify inequities.” 
  
• In response to this, MRED published a statement the it takes fair housing “very seriously,” as it noted that it has “rules and processes in place to scan all private and active listings for violations.” The MLS also noted that all of its members have equal access to its PLN, meaning that no matter which neighborhood or area an agent works in, they can see all of the private listings throughout MRED’s service area.

• Just weeks later, both MRED and Zillow were at it again, when MRED sent an email, obtained to HousingWire, to members warning them that the listing portal’s industry relations team is contacting MRED subscribers and allegedly threatening to contact their home seller clients.

• Despite the bluster of both firms, neither took any sort of public action until Zillow filed its antitrust lawsuit in mid-May. Zillow’s lawsuit came just weeks after MRED and Compass International Holdings announced a partnership to expand MRED’s private listing network nationwide. The arrangement allows Compass agents across the country to input listings into MRED’s system. In the suit. Zillow alleged that the explicit aim of this agreement was to shield these listings from “pro-transparency” platforms and extend MRED’s leverage beyond its Chicago-area footprint.

• Additionally, according to the lawsuit, by early May 2026, MRED allegedly demanded that Zillow reinstate Compass private listings in markets hundreds of miles outside MRED’s traditional service area. On the same day, Zillow says, the technology provider that distributes MRED’s listing feed threatened to terminate Zillow’s access entirely if it did not comply. In the suit, Zillow said the message was clear: Either allow Compass private listings nationally or lose access to all Chicagoland listings. 

• As the events of this week showed, Zillow did not give in to these alleged demands, keeping it in violation of its licensing agreement, according to MRED, resulting in the termination of its listing feeds. 

• The court has yet to rule on Zillow’s motion for a preliminary injunction, so it remains unknown currently how long thousands of Chicagoland area listings will be missing from Zillow.