Bigger. Better. Bolder. Inman Connect is heading to San Diego. Join thousands of real estate pros, connect with the Inman Community and gain insights from hundreds of leading minds shaping the industry. If you’re ready to grow your business and invest in yourself, this is where you need to be. Go BIG in San Diego!
A LinkedIn post from Zillow erupted into the latest battleground over private listings on Friday, with many of real estate’s biggest names — Robert Reffkin, Glenn Sanford, Bess Freedman among them — duking it out in the comments.
Zillow Chief Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson authored the post, titled “Make no mistake — we are championing transparency at Zillow.” He began by arguing that buyers, sellers and agents deserve equal access to data.
TAKE THE INMAN INTEL SURVEY FOR APRIL
“Our new listing access standards – requiring that a listing marketed to some buyers should be available to all buyers – reinforce this belief,” he wrote, referring to the move to ban privately marketed listings from Zillow’s platform.
Soon after Zillow shared the piece on LinkedIn on Friday, industry heavyweights began piling on. By Sunday, the post had racked up nearly 300 comments.
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin — who has made private listings a keystone of his brokerage’s strategy — was among the earliest commenters. Among other things, Reffkin argued in the comments that sellers should be able to choose how they market their properties, and that “Zillow is abusing its market power.”
“This is bully behavior and is an abuse of monopoly power coordinated by the largest trade association in the United States and the largest real estate portal in the United States,” Reffkin said, referring to both Zillow and the National Association of Realtors.
Reffkin’s comment itself sparked a number of replies, including from eXp Realty CEO Leo Pareja.
“Robert Reffkin, I completely believe in seller choice — but that includes telling the actual truth, not steering everyone into a self-serving scheme for recruiting and double-ending transactions under the banner of ‘seller choice,'” Pareja wrote.
Pareja later commented again, arguing that the “drive to exclude properties from the open market is a guaranteed recipe for a fair housing nightmare.”
READ INMAN’S PORTAL LISTING BAN FAQ
Soon Glenn Sanford — CEO of eXp World Holdings, parent of eXp Realty — weighed in, responding to another comment from Reffkin that “you’re positioning this as Zillow suppressing homeowner choice — but let’s call it what it really is: a debate over platform transparency vs. brokerage control.”
Sanford then went on to engage in a back-and-forth with several other commenters, including Compass senior vice president Rory Golod.
Other well-known industry figures weighed in as well. Anthony Lamacchia, CEO of Lamacchia Realty, described Zillow’s private listing ban as a “wildly bold move that is undoubtably, unquestionably, and unequivocally better for homebuyers and home sellers.”
James Dwiggins, CEO of NextHome, wrote, “Wow… Compass Agents Are Drinking The Kool Aid!”
“The entire industry knows this charade already and we’re not dumb so please stop offering us your Kool Aid,” Dwiggins continued.
And Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, weighed in several times, thanking Zillow at one point and at another arguing that “transparency is the only way that a fair market structure can flourish, and therefore keeping clear cooperation allows that to continue.”
On the other hand, Leonard Steinberg — a Compass agent and the brokerage’s “chief evangelist” — wondered if Zillow’s ban is “discriminatory.”
Scores of other comments poured in Friday and Saturday as well, with notable representation from personnel associated with Compass, eXp and Zillow.
The debate — and the willingness of CEOs to take public stands and cross each other on social media — highlighted the way that private listings have become real estate’s cause célèbre in recent weeks.
