Zillow, accused of preferential treatment, sued in an antitrust suit

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Originally published at: Zillow, accused of preferential treatment, sued in an antitrust suit | Boing Boing

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I’m on Zillow daily, yes I did notice the two different listing tabs now. I can’t see how this can be damaging to either side, you get a split look at the two markets in any area, traditional realtor or for sale by owner/FISBO/ independent realtor. My friends that are looking to buy in our area have said the same, it’s a consumer win if you ask us…

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“Zillow is a billboard.” - so an antitrust suit is a non-starter?

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Zillow is full of bullshit. The data their value estimates are based on can be input by owners with no verification. In other words, bullshit.

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exactly.

I’m an appraiser for the local county Assessor’s office. Zillow is garbage.

A better resource is www.redfin.com. It’s free and the values are more accurate.

On the other hand, I can whole-heartedly recommend “Zillow Gone Wild” on Instagram. The postings are comedy gold…

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zillow listed our home as in foreclosure, which was never true.

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Redfin’s entry for my address is a photo of my neighbor’s house. Or rather, the house that they tore down 10 years ago.

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My dad was a realtor and he hated the NAR. He called them a bunch of right-wing assholes.

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Eek. You may want to try and get that cleaned up. I noticed a lot of new tech services lean on Zillow data. I wonder if it’ll bite you when you try and refinance or get a credit check?

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I fired off an email to set 'em straight that at the time was far better composed than I. Got back their feeble ass boilerplate apology, and they immediately removed our home from their listings.

It had had no effect whatsoever, other than the hordes of hipsters drooling at our home as they passed; once the BS listing disappeared, so did they.

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Mine was properly listed when I bought it in 2014. Some time before I sold it in 2020 the listing changed to refer to my single family detached home with a large yard as an apartment belonging to the next door neighbor with no land of its own. My realtor changed it back obviously. Not sure who was in there fiddling with the data or why, and had no control over it.

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Zillow is also claiming it is going to be making cash offers for houses based on their own zestimates. If this isn’t a huge conflict of interest that deserves some regulatory oversight, I don’t know what is.

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Smells like… opportunity.

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THIS ^

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If your home isn’t for sale Redfin default to Google Street View. This may be more of a Google issue than Redfin…

Houses with no address are hard for Google apparently. When I need to visit one, I usually use the neighbors home address for directions.

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Apparently zillow list houses as “pre-foreclosure” and even “foreclosure” really frequently when they are not. I’m not sure what triggers that but it seems recklessly common.

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I don’t know any legitimate reason they wouldn’t make that a selectable filter (just like condo vs house) rather than a tab where you have to select one of the other. When I looked at it yesterday there appears to be no way to show all homes for sale at one time. Also, the FSBO listings get mixed in with “potential” sales like pre-foreclosures which are often just BS, making it more annoying to look through. Having FSBO/independent listings vs. MLS listing as a selectable filter with the default to both, and with not-for-sale houses like pre-foreclosure on the separate tab would make a lot more sense but would not be so advantageous to the NAR cartel.

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I agree on principle, but I’m of a mind “where’s there’s a will, there’s a way”. Regardless of the fall out for Zillow, there exists a near zero chance this will be reversed. All of my purchases and sales of homes are split evenly between using a Realtor, and selling FISBO going back 4 decades now with favorable results.

Again, I do understand the frustration, but I have personally prevailed/persisted anyways.

Thank you for your responce, and have a great day.

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My house is correct on Google street view but not on Redfin, and is absolutely not for sale.

Maybe Rex can use the inadequacy of the competition to bolster the case against Zillow. (Whoever Rex is; the only one I can think of is Rex the Wonder Dog, and if Zillow was really the bad guy Rex wouldn’t need the court’s help to prevail.) The reality is that in the US anyone can sue anyone. The question is whether they can prevail.

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