Following in the footsteps of Chicago’s multiple listing service, the MLS in Nashville told broker-members on Wednesday that it is preparing to shut off Zillow’s access to all listings starting June 1.
Realtracs, which has around 18,000 members and serves Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia, wrote in an email that Zillow’s enforcement of its rule against publicly marketed private listings violates the MLS’s rules.
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The threat follows a similar move by MRED — the MLS that serves Illinois and portions of Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana — to sever Zillow’s most robust source of active listing inventory last week.
“As of today, May 27, Zillow is the only platform not in compliance with the agreement terms, and we do not expect that to change, given Zillow’s own rule that prevents sellers from choosing how their properties are marketed and has resulted in dozens of banned Realtracs listings,” Realtracs wrote in the email.
Two separate sources shared the email with Inman shortly after it was sent, and it was confirmed by several more sources.
In a statement to Inman, Realtracs Chief Marketing Officer Katie St. Francis said that “if Zillow complies with Realtracs display rules by the May 31 deadline (and stops banning listings), they will retain access to the Realtracs feed.”
When MRED shut off Zillow’s access to its data feed last Wednesday, over half of all listings in MRED’s coverage area vanished from the platform.
Zillow temporarily regained access to MRED listings two days later after requesting a temporary restraining order as part of a federal antitrust lawsuit it filed against that MLS and Compass.
In the meantime, the judge overseeing that case blocked Zillow from enforcing its private listings policy in any zip code where MRED was active between April 2025 and April 23, 2026, and he ordered Zillow to display a handful of listings it had previously banned.
In a statement to Inman, Zillow confirmed that Realtracs had threatened to cut its feed. The portal also vowed to stay its course and said Compass is calling the shots.
“Nashville’s MLS has threatened to cut Nashville-area sellers off from Zillow, the most-visited real estate platform in the country, unless Zillow abandons the standards it has put in place to ensure buyers can trust what they see on our platform,” the company said in a statement. “This is the same playbook already documented in federal court: a coordinated campaign, initiated by Compass CEO Robert Reffkin, to pressure MLSs across the country into pulling sellers’ listings off Zillow.
“A judge on Friday just ordered the MLS in Chicago to restore our listing feed,” the statement continued. “Nashville sellers and buyers deserve access to a full, transparent market. Zillow’s listing access standards exist to protect that. We will not abandon them.”
Direct data feeds obtained from the nation’s roughly 500 MLSs are a primary way for Zillow to obtain the listings that power much of the company’s revenue-generating business. Zillow also strikes agreements with brokerages that provide the portal with their listing information.
Historically, the brokerage agreements have been a backup plan. They prevented Zillow from going completely dark in the nation’s third-largest real estate market while MRED shut off its feed.
In a statement shared with Inman, Benchmark Realty CEO Phillip Cantrell said that his company was in discussions with Realtracs and Zillow.
“We have been in talks with both companies and have a solution to meet your needs as a professional,” according to the statement, which Cantrell said was shared with over 1,900 affiliates. “We have the ability to provide a direct feed to Zillow, so your listings aren’t missing from their site.
“What this does is brings control of our work product back to us,” the statement continued, “where it belongs.”
