Two Zillow Lawsuits Merged as Judge Grants Plaintiffs' Motion

Two antitrust lawsuits concerning Zillow's multifamily rental agreement with the portal operator Redfin have been consolidated after a judge granted a motion to merge separate cases brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and five states' Attorneys General.

In February 2025, Zillow and Redfin entered a $100 million listings syndication deal. Zillow agreed to pay for the syndication rights of listings in multifamily buildings with more than 25 units on Redfin’s rental sites, and Zillow would also pay to receive leads generated through the syndication for up to nine years, among other agreements.

At the end of September 2025, the FTC sued Zillow and Redfin for stifling competition in the rentals market. The FTC alleged that Zillow had effectively removed Redfin as a competitor in the rentals market as part of the agreement, branding the agreement as an unlawful merger/acquisition.

Commenting on the lawsuit, the FTC's Director of the Bureau of Competition, Daniel Guarnera, said, "Zillow paid millions of dollars to eliminate Redfin as an independent competitor in an already concentrated advertising market."

Just one day later, on 1 October, Attorneys General in Virginia, Arizona, New York, Connecticut, and Washington launched a similar, though not identical, lawsuit against Zillow and Redfin over the syndication partnership. The suit alleged that the two companies schemed together to reduce competition in the online housing rental market. The plaintiffs claimed the partnership was an illegal scheme to prevent the portals from competing.

Given the similarity of the charges brought against Zillow, the FTC filed a motion to combine the two lawsuits last week. The five Attorneys General declined to file a counter-motion, and the request to merge the lawsuits was granted.

Both Zillow and Redfin refute the charges, and the rival portals argue that the syndication is pro-competition because it increased access to multifamily listings across several platforms (Zillow, Redfin, and Redfin's flagship rentals site, Rent.com).

Redfin was acquired by Rocket earlier this year for nearly two billion dollars, combining one of the country's largest home search platforms with a leading financial services provider.