Zillow CEO: It’s ‘obvious’ private listing networks harm consumers

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Have no doubt — Zillow is on the side of Clear Cooperation.

That’s the message Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman delivered on the latest episode of real estate strategist Mike DelPrete’s Context podcast, where the two thought leaders talked about Zillow’s evolving Housing Super App and raising consumer awareness about Zillow’s mortgage and rental businesses alongside the industry’s latest hot-button topic.

“We didn’t expect this to be such a big issue,” he said. “To us, it’s so obvious that private listing networks are bad. They’re bad for buyers. They’re bad for sellers and they’re ultimately bad for agents, right?”

Wacksman said the Rule, which requires brokers to submit a listing to their multiple listing services within one business day of marketing a property to the public, helps set the U.S. market apart from other global markets that don’t protect agent and consumer access to listings.

“If that goes away and private listing networks become more of the norm, well, buyers don’t get to see all the inventory. That’s not what buyers want,” he said. “Sellers also end up leaving money on the table, many of whom don’t know that. There are a bunch of studies that have come out that show that off-MLS listings sell for less. People don’t understand they’re trading visibility for price.”

The CEO also said agents would suffer in an industry without Clear Cooperation, as a crucial part of their value proposition comes from having full access to listings.

“Ultimately, then, their value props [would] diminish,” he said. “They couldn’t say, ‘I can’t take you to see all the homes; I can [only] take you to the homes I have.’ Consumers [would] end up paying more, right? You’d have to pay for access to listings. None of that sounds good.”

Wacksman joins the list of portal leaders who’ve championed Clear Cooperation, including Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales and Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. Zillow President Susan Daimler also sounded off about CCP in an interview with Inman on Monday, noting the only change she’d like to see is removing the exemption for office exclusives.

“The piece of CCP that we think can be strengthened is the office exclusive loophole, and that’s kind of the only imperfection we see in it,” she said.

“And while that exception was created to really be for a small number of listings where people required a different level of privacy than maybe the average homeseller, the loophole is a little bit what’s created these private listing networks, which we are vehemently against. They’re terrible for the consumer and the agent.”

The battle over Clear Cooperation is far from over, as industry members fight to either repeal the Rule altogether or keep it with amendments to solve key pain points.

Both sides say their viewpoint is ultimately the service of upholding consumer choice, with opponents saying sellers and their listing agents should be able to market homes off the MLS. Compass CEO Robert Reffkin has been leading the charge against CCP, saying it forces listing agents to break their fiduciary duty to sellers.

“While the Clear Cooperation Policy may endeavor to serve a noble purpose of transparency, it imposes restrictions that must be questioned — not out of defiance of NAR policies, but out of profound respect for our clients’ individual needs and the ethical standards Realtors are required to uphold as outlined in the Code of Ethics,” he wrote in a Sept. 20 op-ed.

Email Marian McPherson