Andy Florance, CEO of Homes.com parent CoStar, wrote another opinion piece on Wednesday, criticizing competitor Zillow for carrying out its much-anticipated policy that blocks privately marketed listings from its platform.
The post, which Florance published on LinkedIn, was addressed to real estate agents who Florance said were losing leads to Zillow.
“Zillow demands all your listings immediately and then takes the leads generated, selling them to other agents,” Florance wrote. “These leads belong to you and your sellers — not Zillow. Zillow is taking your clients right out of your hands.”
The post continued Florance’s ongoing laser focus on a key competitor and the different policy and business choices between his platform and his competitors’.
Florance’s post ran on the same morning that Inman published a story about Homes.com sending direct mailers to homesellers asking them to spend money on the portal to “boost” their listings.
The post also followed an opinion piece Florance wrote in April, shortly after Zillow announced its updated listing standards policy that requires all listings to be put in the multiple listing service and therefore on Zillow within one business day of being publicly marketed. Listings that aren’t in the MLS within a business day of being publicly marketed face a ban from Zillow, according to the new standards.
That ban took effect on June 30 and has been a flash point of debate among major industry players since the day it was announced. Florance said that the first listing was banned on Friday.
Zillow didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about various claims in Florance’s post.
Florance also took umbrage with marketing emails Zillow sends to sellers, and with material on Zillow’s website that explain to sellers how they can create for-sale-by-owner listings on the platform.
Zillow is one of the few major portals that allow FSBO listings. Even before the National Association of Realtors repealed its no-commingling rule last month, Zillow began showing FSBO listings alongside MLS listings on its main search site.
Homes.com doesn’t show FSBO listings, nor does Realtor.com.
“These Zillow ‘no agent listings’ are only on Zillow and not on the MLS, brokerage sites, or other portals,” Florance wrote. “Zillow is bullying agents, threatening to ban agents’ listings for life if they are marketed anywhere other than Zillow. But yet they are fine with listings that are only marketed on Zillow and nowhere else?”
Florance also took aim at recent partnerships struck between Zillow with both Redfin and Realtor.com to syndicate their rental listings on its platform.
Such agreements, Florance said, might be anticompetitive. As he did in his April post, Florance included a link to the Department of Justice’s antitrust division and encouraged his readers to report the agreements.
