Zillow Announces Enhancements to its Local Legal Protection Tool and IDX Issue Fixes

There have been some big changes at Zillow as it slides into 2021 with innovation and growth as its driving force. 

The real estate giant announced that it now provides source of income and voucher discrimination protection data on all rental listings as part of the Local Legal Protection tool’s recent expansion. The addition to the tool allows users to browse local laws and protect them from discrimination base on how they pay their rent. 

Christopher Roberts, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Zillow Rentals, explained:

"Zillow is building an inclusive rental platform, developing products that make rental listings accessible to all renters. By expanding Local Legal Protections, we are empowering renters and educating property owners about local voucher discrimination protections -- and hopefully removing a barrier for people shopping for a new place to call home."

Local Legal Protections originally launched to protect LGBTQ+ home hunters from discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. Zillow has been very upfront on its stance when it comes to discrimination in the past, having run many surveys and studies on how its users are treated on its site based on things like race, gender, sexuality, disabilities, and other lifestyles. 

We recently reported that Zillow switched from MLS to an IDX feed and now the real estate giant has announced that it has successfully restored past listing history to agent profiles and is working on fixing more issues with active listings appearing on agent profiles. 

When the company initially began to switch over to an IDX feed, some email addresses for agents using Premier Agent didn’t match with listings because the MLS doesn’t provide an email address with a listing. This led to display issues around past and active listings on agent profiles. 

Other recent changes include a stronger focus on promoting agent-represented listings, enhancing the way buyers’ agents advertise their listings on Zillow, and the total elimination of the pre-foreclosure advertising program.