Zillow’s New Listing Standards: What They Mean for Home Sellers
Zillow is synonymous with home shopping. For many homebuyers, sellers, agents, and mortgage professionals, the online real estate marketplace is one of the first places to look if you’re exploring home listings.
Even as Zillow reigns supreme in the real estate world, the company is making changes that could impact home sellers who want their listing featured on the site.
Whether you’re an owner selling a home, an agent managing buyers and sellers, or on the hunt for a new home, these new standards could impact the home-buying and selling process.
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What are the new Zillow standards?
Earlier this year, Zillow announced that homes publicly featured for sale, like a “for sale” sign in the yard or an Instagram post, must be submitted to a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) within one day. This policy reflects the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Clear Cooperation Policy, which also requires agents to submit listings to an MLS within one business day of publicly marketing the property.
Zillow’s Listing Policy
A home’s listing must be submitted to an MLS within one day of public marketing, or it won’t be featured on Zillow or Trulia.
An MLS is a private database for real estate professionals. There are more than 500 MLSs where brokers share property information with other brokers, sellers and buyers. With the competitiveness of the real estate market, an MLS database allows small brokerages and large firms to compete on a level playing field.
This stricter policy goes even further: listings that don’t follow these rules won’t get published on Zillow for the life of the listing between the broker and seller. That means a late MLS submission could permanently block that listing from appearing on Zillow or Trulia — even if the mistake is realized later.
Of course, if you need to manage a private home listing, there are ways in the MLS to do that. But most people looking for public listings should get access to them. After all, if you’re looking to buy a home, don’t you want to see all the ones available that meet your specifications and requirements? Zillow says yes.
How does the new Zillow policy impact home sellers?
Zillow says this won’t impact most folks since most home sellers act in good faith when creating and managing home listings. The argument is simple: if you’re selling a home, that listing should be as publicly accessible as possible for the masses.
However, not everyone follows those standards and procedures. Some agents and home sellers agree to list a home for sale in select places, like a brokerage website or with limited exposure. This tactic gives some homebuyers an advantage, getting access to more homes only if they know where to look.
Zillow believes all homebuyers should get access to all available homes that meet their requirements. If some agents and homebuyers limit promotion, buyers and agents searching for available homes don’t see all the options they should. Zillow says the more exposure a home gets, the higher the likelihood a home sells quickly and for at least the asking price, if not more.
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When will the new Zillow standards go into effect?
Zillow has already started alerting agents if listings don’t meet these standards. Each listing that doesn’t follow the rules creates a non-compliant violation for the listing agent. Right now, the initial rollout of the stricter policy is working in phases. So far, larger U.S. markets will see the change sooner as it grows nationwide.
Listing blocks won’t start until June 30. Agents will be subject to a three-strike rule: if an agent receives three noncompliance violations, the third listing will be blocked from Zillow and Trulia for the life of the listing. After that, every additional noncompliant listing will also be blocked. Repeat violators may be flagged and lose access to Zillow’s listing platform tools.
What you can and can’t do under Zillow’s new standards
(Image credit: Getty Images)
If you’re worried about your home not meeting the new policies and standards, Zillow has cleared up any confusion about potential impacts.
You can:
- Offer and promote exclusive listings as long as the homeowner signs a seller disclosure and meets specific requirements.
- Show “coming soon” listings that are put in the MLS within a day.
- Send a brokerage listing or feed instead of an MLS listing.
- Post “sneak peek” listings in email newsletters or on social media — but only if they don’t include identifying property details. That means no address, no price and no call to action like “schedule a tour” or “view the listing.”
You can’t:
- Expect Zillow to share listings that are publicly marketed but not entered into the MLS within a day of being marketed.
- Share listings with some buyers — unless they are clients of the brokerage — and not others.
- Market listings to consumers on public-facing platforms without entering those listings in the MLS.
- Publicly market off-MLS listings as available if buyers work with your agent or brokerage to gain access to that listing.
- Public marketing tactics that count toward the one-day rule include:
- Open houses
- Virtual tours
- Listings on a broker’s website
- A yard sign or signs around a neighborhood
- Social posts that include a call to action or listing details
What home sellers can do
If you’re thinking about selling your home within the next couple of months, make sure you find an agent who knows the new Zillow rules. Otherwise, you could miss out on a Zillow or Trulia listing that broadly promotes the sale of your home.
You’re within your rights if you don’t want your home listed on Zillow. The company suggests making sure the home is entered into the MLS but opting out of internet display. That way, the listing is still shared with MLS participants through internal feeds, without being published on public sites like Zillow or Trulia.
You can also keep the sale completely private, but that must be disclosed in writing. Private listings need to meet specific MLS criteria to avoid noncompliance violations, which could negatively impact the listing agent if there is one.
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