A judge has ordered all Chicago-area real estate listings remain on Zillow amid an ongoing dispute that last week saw thousands of listings removed from some of the most popular real estate sites.
At the center of the dispute are a handful of listings Zillow said violated its policy. Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) had accused Zillow of violating its licensing agreement by not allowing the listings to be displayed on its site.
“In a striking lesson in irony, Zillow has chosen not to display 43,000 MRED listings because it demands the right, and has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit to secure that right – to exclude nine listings it disfavors,” the suburban company said in a statement.
Zillow argued the rules it is accused of breaking “didn’t exist when Zillow signed its agreement” and said the listings, which involve some on a private network and others in various locations, “go against Zillow’s belief in an open and transparent housing market.”
According to the companies, a federal judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order and ordered the “immediate restoration of Chicago-area listing data on Zillow.”
The judge also, however, required that the nine listings in question remain on the site.
“The court made clear that Zillow cannot selectively ban listings that were included in MRED’s feed as of May 21, including the nine listings Zillow chose to exclude in the first place, the very conduct that resulted in MRED suspending Zillow’s feed access,” MRED said in a statement.
“Thousands of homes temporarily hidden from the 235 million average monthly unique users who search for homes on Zillow are now visible again. And sellers who had no say in this decision no longer have to bear the cost,” Zillow said in a release on the decision, calling the move a “positive step for Chicago buyers, sellers and agents.”
MRED noted, however, that the “central issue remains unchanged.”
