Attempts by some of the nation’s largest MLSs to cut off their listing feeds to Zillow have marked a dramatic escalation in the fight to wrest control of brokerage listings from the portal giant.
And many agents and brokerage leaders across the country are actively cheering on this effort, the latest Inman Intel Index survey results suggest.
Chicagoland’s Midwest Real Estate Data was ordered to restore Zillow’s access to the feed for now while the courts review the matter. And Realtracs in Tennessee rescinded its deadline to cut off its own feed to Zillow as it works toward a new long-term agreement with the portal.
But the dispute has captured the attention of agents and leaders at brokerages and MLSs alike, and raises questions about whether this will be a series of isolated spats or the beginning of a broader wave of challenges to portal access.
It’s these questions that Intel sought to shed further light on in its latest survey of real estate professionals across the brokerage world.
Read the full breakdown in this week’s report.
Siding with MLSs
Each month, Intel surveys the engaged Inman audience to get a read on the health of their businesses — and, at times, their views on the biggest hot-button questions facing the industry.
Because the Intel Index surveys agents who tend to be the Inman subscribers most likely to take a survey, it doesn’t always reflect the opinions of the broader real estate community.
Still, responses to these questions stand out from previous surveys on hot-button topics. Most of the agents and brokerage leaders surveyed in June favored the efforts of MRED and other MLSs that have moved to cut off Zillow’s listing access.
- 71 percent of agents Intel surveyed in June sided with the MLSs involved in these disputes.
- Only 5 percent sided with Zillow’s position. But another 8 percent said that while they see merit to the MLSs’ arguments, they believe cutting off the feed went too far.
- 12 percent of respondents said they sided with neither, pointing out that agents and consumers were caught in the middle.
The brokerage leaders surveyed by Intel were nearly as supportive of the MLSs, but more likely to side with Zillow’s position than the typical agent respondent.
- 13 percent of brokerage leader respondents said they side with Zillow, citing the benefits buyers and sellers receive from the broadest listing exposure.
Intel’s survey also offered insights into how the engaged Inman audience would respond if their own MLS were to take a similarly significant step to cut off listing access to the portals.
- The majority of agents surveyed by Intel — 61 percent — said that if their own MLS moved to cut off Zillow’s listing feed, they would support the decision.
And the survey results suggest that a larger consensus could be reached, but only if local MLSs take additional steps.
- 16 percent of agent respondents said they would support their MLS cutting off its feed to Zillow only if it offered “strong alternatives” for getting their listings in front of consumers.
Agents with indie and franchise-affiliated brokerages were more likely to want conditions before supporting a listing-feed cutoff, while the vast majority of agents at big, non-franchising brokerages said they would side with their MLS cutting off the feed without conditions.
Even so, outright supporters of a potential listing feed cutoff in their own market made up the largest share of any response choice among agents at small indies (at just under 50 percent) and franchise-affiliated brokerages (at 60 percent).
Not a slam-dunk
Intel’s survey also sheds light on the ways in which this issue is still divisive, even within real estate brokerage circles that have been largely dissatisfied in previous surveys with Zillow’s dominant position in the listing space.
- 8 percent of agents said if their own MLS cut off their feed to Zillow, they would “actively oppose” the move.
- Steps that these opposed agents said they would take include pushing back through their MLS or association, or finding other ways to get their listings on Zillow.
But that’s not the full extent of potential opposition that MLSs taking a similar step would have to deal with.
- In addition to the 8 percent who said they’d openly oppose their MLS taking this step, another 4 percent said they’d be unhappy with the listing feed cutoff — just not enough to speak out openly against it.
The minority of surveyed agents who opposed MLS feed cutoffs in their market tended to say that if their local MLS tried to cut off Zillow’s access to listings, it would harm their clients — or their own businesses — more than it would harm Zillow.
- 44 percent of agent respondents said they expected Zillow would be the biggest loser if their local MLS cut off access to the feed — the largest response group, though not quite a majority.
- 16 percent of agent respondents said they expected such a move would lead to meaningful harm to buyers and sellers due to the loss of exposure and access that would follow.
- Another 4 percent said the main effect of such a move would be to harm agents who depend on portal leads or broad consumer access to listings.
- Most of the remaining agents — 31 percent of all those that Intel surveyed — said they expected a hypothetical listing-feed cutoff in their market would lead to little meaningful change, or merely modest short-lived friction.
It’s worth reiterating that Intel’s survey most closely reflects the opinions of an engaged segment of Inman’s audience, particularly one that’s most likely to take a voluntary survey each month when asked.
For that reason, the percentages here should not always be seen as strictly reflective of the industry at large. MLS decision-makers should be particularly cautious when reading these results, as conditions may be substantially different in their markets.
Still, the support for MLS action nationwide is notably larger than on some other hot-button issues that Intel has asked about in the past.
Intel also received dozens of first-hand accounts of how the MRED cutoff in the Chicago area affected agents and brokerage leaders who work there.
Next week, Intel will dive in deeper into what their experiences in these markets were like — and how the brief cutoff affected their clients.
Methodology notes: This month’s Inman Intel Index survey ran from June 16-25, and had received 536 responses. The entire Inman reader community was invited to participate, and a rotating, randomized selection of community members was prompted to participate by email. Users responded to a series of questions related to their self-identified corner of the real estate industry — including real estate agents, brokerage leaders, lenders and proptech entrepreneurs. Results reflect the opinions of the engaged Inman community, which may not always match those of the broader real estate industry. This survey is conducted monthly.
