Zillow Leans Into PR Battle with Compass Claiming Private Listings "reinforce segregation"

New Zillow research claims to show that private listings in and around Chicago are disproportionately concentrated in majority-white neighbourhoods.

The study, which was circulated to journalists via a press release, is well timed, given that the portal company is currently battling in court to thwart an injunction against its private listings ban.

Authored by Zillow's in-house team, the study suggests that Chicago offers a warning about where expanded private marketing could lead. The company’s analysis of Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) (the same MLS whose policies Zillow has come up against) shows that homes in majority-white neighbourhoods are “2.2 times more likely to be listed privately.”

Zillow says MRED’s nearly decade-old private listing network, which withholds certain homes from public portals, is disproportionately shaping access to inventory. According to the data:

“In majority-white areas, 7.9% of homes for sale within MRED were listed privately. In majority-non-white areas, that share was 3.4%.”

“Chicago shows what can happen when parts of the housing market move into the shadows,” said Zillow Senior Economist Orphe Divounguy. “Private marketing might sound appealing, but it risks deepening segregation and limiting opportunity, moving us further from the fair and open housing market consumers deserve.”

With some brokerages such as Compass championing “exclusive access” strategies, Zillow argues the risks are rising. Michael Chavarria of the HOPE Fair Housing Center added: “Homebuyers deserve the right to see all the homes available in an area — not to have those choices quietly made for them.”

Zillow's release also cited University of North Carolina professor Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, who noted that private listings “unintentionally reinforce racial segregation” as agents rely on racially homogenous social networks. Such practices, she wrote, are “a prime example of a practice that legislators … can and should target.”