StreetEasy Revives Dormant Policy in Continued Private Listings Crackdown

StreetEasy is getting strict on private listings, barely two weeks after imposing a ban on new Compass agents joining its 'Experts' program.

According to reporting by The Real Deal, Zillow's New York City portal updated its policies on Thursday to ban listings that are not uploaded to the site on the same calendar day that they are publicly marketed.

In an update on its website, StreetEasy says publicly marketed listings include listings shown 'on a brokerage website or portal, including behind a consumer registration wall,' which encompasses both of Compass’ listing strategies (private exclusives and “Coming Soon” properties).

The new policy goes live later this week.

As a subsidiary of Zillow, StreetEasy is unsurprisingly following the market leader's lead on private listings—the bane of Zillow's business model. And the ongoing battle between Zillow and Compass is only accelerating. From Zillow and StreetEasy imposing listing bans on parties that don't adhere to their listing access standards to Compass suggesting that agents temporarily delist from StreetEasy, agents and consumers increasingly look like the rope in an ugly tug of war as both parties try to exert pressure on the future of how properties are bought and sold in the United States.

A Compass spokesperson said: "This is the same coercive playbook Zillow has used across the country, using its monopolistic power to punish sellers who choose to market their homes off its website. Now StreetEasy is saying the same thing in New York: ‘Give us your listing first, or we’ll punish you."

As The Real Deal put it so aptly:

StreetEasy’s new policy is the latest indication that the fight over where and when listings are publicly displayed has finally landed in New York after Compass and Zillow have spent the last year duking it out on the national stage and in other secondary markets.