By Shaina Mishkin
Real estate stocks are rising this week, but the same can't be said for Zillow Group's stock. Upheaval in the world of home listings isn't helping.
The Vanguard Real Estate exchange-traded fund, which tracks a variety of real estate stocks, is up 2.9% since last Friday's close. Housing stocks got a boost on Thursday after the 10-year Treasury yield, which informs mortgage rates, turned around.
Zillow closed roughly 0.8% higher on Thursday, according to Dow Jones Market Data, but the stock is down 2.4% since last Friday, lagging behind the other stocks in the Vanguard Real Estate fund.
Investors are weighing a data risk to the housing technology company. On Wednesday, a Chicago-area home listing service cut Zillow's connection to the organization's data. On Thursday morning, Zillow search results showed 662 for-sale home listings in Chicago -- less than half the 1,456 listings it displayed on Wednesday morning.
( News Corp, which owns Barron's, also operates the listing site Realtor.com through its Move subsidiary.)
The cutoff from MRED, a Chicago-area real estate listing data provider, is the latest chapter in the continuing industry feud over off-market listings that is once again playing out in court.
Listing data providers ending their connections with Zillow is among the risks the company warns about in its annual Securities and Exchange filing.
Zillow "may not be able to maintain or establish relationships with real estate brokerages, real estate listing aggregators, MLSs, property management companies, home builders and other third-party listing providers, which could limit the information we have to power our products and services," the company wrote in its filing.
Zillow's consumer appeal "depends to some degree on providing timely access to comprehensive and accurate real estate listings, listing media, and information," the SEC filing says.
A loss of access could hurt its listing data quality, which can "reduce customer confidence in our products and services and cause customers to go elsewhere for real estate listings and information, which could severely harm our business, results of operations and financial condition."
The severed feed is a test of Zillow's brand power. A Zillow spokesperson said the company "still has the most comprehensive housing inventory in the country, across for-sale homes, new construction and rentals, and that includes many listings in Chicago."
Agents whose listings were removed, but who still want them to be displayed, can ask their managing broker to opt into Zillow syndication directly through Zillow's website. "We receive direct feeds from some brokerages already, and we expect more inquiries and direct feed agreements now that MRED has officially blocked local brokers from reaching us through the MLS feed," the Zillow spokesperson said.
The removal is a revival of the listings feud unfolding between Zillow and the brokerage Compass. Compass and Zillow previously butted heads in a New York federal court room over the latter's removal of some of the former's listings because of the way they were marketed. Compass dropped the lawsuit in March.
MRED is a multiple-listing service, or MLS. There are hundreds of these throughout the nation, all with their own rules. Real estate agents send their listings to these organizations, which allows other agents to see them. They also provide data feeds to listing websites like Zillow.
In April, MRED said it was partnering with Compass in its national expansion of its private listing network. Zillow, in an antitrust complaint it filed on May 12, said MRED warned Zillow it was in violation of the listing data provider's own rules. MRED considered Zillow out of compliance with MRED's policies because it removed Compass listings in Florida, Georgia, and California, according to the complaint.
MRED in court filings said that Zillow's lawsuit is "rooted not in competitive harm, but in its insecurity about continuing to generate revenue and its dissatisfaction with the contract terms governing its access to MRED's listing data." MRED didn't respond to Barron's request for comment on the lawsuit.
The conflict is "about whether homeowners have a choice in how they market their homes, or whether Zillow can set a one-size-fits-all policy for the industry," a Compass spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week.
The disagreement will continue to play out in court. A telephone status meeting with the parties is scheduled for May 26.
Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 21, 2026 16:56 ET (20:56 GMT)
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