Dive Brief:

• The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday that it settled anti-trust litigation against Zillow and Redfin alleging that the companies colluded to limit competition in internet listing services for apartment rentals.
• An FTC order requires Zillow and Redfin to reverse a 2025 agreement under which Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to close its ILS service, repost apartment listings only provided by Zillow, shift its customers to Zillow and stay out of the ILS market for up to nine years, the commission said.
• “This settlement delivers better, quicker, more certain results for both renters and property management companies than we would have been able to achieve after prevailing at trial, including firm and enforceable commitments by Redfin to relaunch its rentals advertising business,” Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement.

Dive Insight:

Under the FTC order, which will be active for 10 years, Zillow and Redfin agreed to remove restrictions on Redfin’s ability to sell advertising services and display its own customers’ listings, the commission said. Redfin will also be freed from any requirement to provide Zillow with nonpublic or competitively advantageous business information.

Redfin committed to relaunch its ILS rental advertising business no longer than six months after the order is finalized, hire a general manager, sales staff and fully trained customer support team for the ILS, and launch advertising to promote the business, the FTC said.

The company also pledged to provide “significantly more” listings than it featured before the 2025 agreement with Zillow and to spend millions of dollars to grow its ILS business, the commission said.

Redfin “has made a multiyear commitment to operate this business, assuring that ILS customers have a robust set of options to choose from well into the future,” the FTC said.

Under the order Zillow agreed to smooth Redfin’s reentry into the market by providing employee information enabling Redfin to interview Zillow employees. It must also waive any noncompete, anti-poaching or other impediments that might prevent Zillow employees from joining Redfin.

Zillow is also prohibited from preventing or impeding any ILS customer from entering into a contract with Redfin, the FTC said.

Zillow in a statement welcomed resolution of the dispute with the FTC.

“This is good news for renters, housing providers and the rental market broadly,” Zillow said.

Since the launch of the Redfin-Zillow partnership, the number of multifamily properties on Redfin's websites nearly quadrupled, and the number of such listings on Zillow's websites grew almost 40%, Zillow said.

“The bottom line: the Zillow/Redfin partnership will continue unchanged, and the listings syndication across Zillow, Trulia, HotPads, Rent.com, ApartmentGuide, Redfin and Realtor stays intact,” Zillow said.