Zillow's antitrust hearing gets underway as consumer groups call for federal investigation of Compass and MLSs

Key takeaways Compass executives directed Zillow’s Chicagoland home listing feed termination from the top, prepared marketing campaigns capitalizing on Zillow's listing loss before MRED had even publicly threatened action, and privately mocked the logistics of their own press release commitments. The timeline Zillow laid out — connecting Compass' legal defeats to urgent calls with MRED leadership, followed by feed cuts at newly acquired Compass subsidiaries — paints a picture of a conspiracy to harm Zillow. The Consumer Federation of America and allied civil rights groups today called on the DOJ and FTC to investigate, citing evidence that off-MLS listings produce worse outcomes for sellers, with the harm falling disproportionately on communities of color. A federal judge in Chicago heard the first day of testimony Wednesday in Zillow's antitrust lawsuit against Compass and the Chicagoland MLS, Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), a hearing that unfolded against a backdrop of growing outside scrutiny of the defendants' conduct. The Consumer Federation of America, joined by housing, consumer and civil rights organizations, today urged the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the Compass-MRED agreement for potential antitrust violations and civil rights harms. The groups cited the rise of private listing networks, in which sellers' agents control which buyers even know a home is for sale, as a threat to housing access at a moment of historic unaffordability. Inside the courtroom, Zillow was making essentially the same case. The dispute stems from Zillow's Listing Access Standards (LAS), a policy the company introduced last year requiring that any home being publicly marketed for sale be visible to all buyers, not routed through a closed brokerage network. Zillow alleges that Compass, whose business model relies in part on a "private exclusives" program that gates listings within its own agent network, joined forces with MRED to force Zillow to abandon its pro-consumer standards nationwide. In May, after Zillow declined to display Compass listings far outside the Chicagoland area that didn't comply with its standards, MRED cut Zillow's feed entirely, removing thousands of Chicago-area homes from the platform without sellers' knowledge or consent. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order days later, restoring the feed while the court took a fuller look. This week’s hearing is that fuller look. 'We turn on the lights' Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s chief industry development officer, anchored the day's testimony, describing for-sale home listings as "the lifeblood of our business" and framing Zillow's standards as a straightforward consumer protection policy. "Our brand promise is to show everything on the market. We turn on the lights," Samuelson said. "If we can't show everything for sale, we lose brand trust." He walked the court through what Zillow sees as the core problem with Compass' private listing model: it routes buyers only through Compass agents, enabling the brokerage to potentially double-end commissions and use off-market inventory as a recruiting tool. Zillow's own research, he testified, shows homes sold off the open market sell for less, with the harm falling disproportionately on communities of color. Samuelson also traced a detailed timeline of contacts between Compass and MRED leadership in the months before the feed was cut: Compass executive Ryan Jensen connecting with MRED executive Chris Haran to discuss IDX display rules, urgent calls between the two after Compass lost its own court bid against Zillow, and Compass CEO Robert Reffkin offering to share private exclusives with MRED in February 2026. On cross-examination, Compass counsel pointed out that of roughly 1,390 listings Zillow suppressed under its standards, all but eight belonged to Compass, arguing Zillow was targeting one competitor specifically. Samuelson's response: Compass is the country's largest brokerage and has built a business model that financially incentivizes agents to keep listings off the open market. Also, Zillow provides education and issues warnings before suppressing listings, and other brokerages largely haven’t adopted these hidden listing schemes. Internal documents tell a story Compass regional vice president and MRED board member Fran Broude closed out the day's testimony, and internal documents introduced during her examination proved revealing. A joint Compass-MRED press release from April, announcing MRED's purported national expansion, promised that Compass would provide all of its nationwide listings to MRED and subsidize memberships for up to 100,000 agents. Neither commitment has come close to being fulfilled. Internal Compass emails show executives scrambling over subsidy logistics four days after the press release, with one noting that even a $10-per-agent subsidy "would cost us $1 million." Broude forwarded that email to a colleague with three facepalm emojis. The colleague replied: "What. A. Mess." Documents also revealed MRED's and Compass’ attempts to launder previously banned listings back onto Zillow. In late April and early May, Compass uploaded listings from Florida, Georgia and California — all suppressed listings from markets where Zillow had been actively enforcing its standards — into MRED's system. Emails show Compass tracking whether those listings would then appear on Zillow, and asking MRED to follow up directly with Zillow when they didn't. Additional documents showed Compass preparing a Chicago-area ad campaign promoting listings "not found on Zillow" before MRED had even publicly threatened to cut the feed. And a Broude email acknowledged that for Compass' flex agent teams, Zillow leads represent "about 40-50% of business," with some agents actively promising sellers a Zillow Showcase as part of their pitch. The stakes Zillow Chief FInancial Officer Jeremy Hofmann testified that the harm from losing MRED's feed cannot be reduced to a number. "If we lose access to listings, highly likely we lose access to consumers, we lose advertisers," he said. "Our brand promise is broken." What's at stake for ordinary buyers and sellers got perhaps its clearest articulation from the Consumer Federation of America, which chose today — as testimony was underway — to urge the DOJ and FTC to open a federal investigation into the Compass-MRED agreement. The groups pointed to documented evidence that homes sold off the open market sell for less, and that the harm falls disproportionately on communities of color. For a buyer in Chicago trying to find every home available to them, or a seller who believes their listing is reaching the widest possible pool of buyers, the outcome of this case is not an abstraction. The hearing continues Thursday.