Federal regulators and five states have reached a last-minute settlement resolving their antitrust claims against Zillow and Redfin, two of the nation’s largest online real estate marketplaces.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and attorneys general from New York, Virginia, Arizona, Connecticut, and Washington announced the settlement on Aug. 24, just as a trial was set to begin in federal court in Virginia.
The lawsuit stemmed from a 2025 partnership that regulators say amounted to Zillow paying Redfin $100 million to stop competing in the apartment rental advertising business.
In exchange, Redfin agreed to display Zillow’s apartment rental listings on its websites, transfer its customers to Zillow, and stay out of the multifamily rental advertising market for up to nine years, according to the lawsuit.
The FTC alleged that the deal effectively combined two of the three largest online apartment listing services against their main competitor, CoStar’s Apartments.com. The states, meanwhile, argued that the arrangement reduced competition, drove up advertising costs for landlords and, made it harder for renters to find housing.
Under Monday’s settlement, which is expected to take effect in 2027 and remain in place for 10 years, Redfin must relaunch its apartment advertising business within six months of the agreement receiving court approval.
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Zillow’s apartment listings will continue to appear on Redfin’s flagship website, as well as Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com, which Redfin owns. Redfin will also continue syndicating Zillow listings, meaning Zillow will retain much of the audience it gained through the 2025 agreement.
The terms also require Zillow to help Redfin in rebuilding its rental advertising operation.
Specifically, that means Zillow must provide Redfin with information about certain employees so the company can recruit them, waive noncompete or no-poaching policies that could prevent those hires, and allow apartment advertisers under Zillow contracts to renegotiate without penalty for nine months after Redfin relaunches its business.
Zillow and Redfin will be barred from entering into similar agreements in the future.
The companies must collectively pay $2 million to the states under the settlement.
In X posts, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson celebrated the outcome, saying, “This anticompetitive agreement is now history under our proposed settlement.”
He described it as “a complete victory” that “resolves all our competition concerns” and secures “everything we could have gotten” if the government had prevailed at trial.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the multistate lawsuit, said the case restored competition among online rental listing platforms, which she called “critical tools that New Yorkers rely on to find affordable homes.”
Zillow and Redfin, both based in Seattle, also called the resolution a win for the companies.
“This agreement allows us to maintain our rental partnership with Zillow through at least 2030 while building and investing in a standalone rentals business of our own,” a spokesperson for Redfin said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“This resolution is a win for renters and multifamily housing providers,” Michael Sherman, general manager and senior vice president of Zillow Rentals, said in a statement.
He said the partnership has brought “more leads and leases to property managers and more options to renters,” and that the standalone products will allow Zillow to “do even more to support the marketplace.”
