The Real Estate News Everyone Is Talking About This Week

If you've seen something in your feed this week about Zillow and Chicago listings, you're not alone. It's been the talk of the industry, and I want to break it down for you in plain language.

Here's what happened. Back in 2025, Zillow announced a policy requiring that any publicly marketed listing be added to the MLS within 24 hours or it would be banned from their site. The idea sounded reasonable on the surface, but the way Zillow chose to enforce it created a real problem. They began selectively removing certain listings they disagreed with, which put them in violation of their licensing agreement with MRED, the MLS that powers real estate across greater Chicagoland.

MRED gave Zillow every opportunity to fix it. Zillow declined. So MRED pulled the feed. About 43,000 local listings are no longer showing up on Zillow or Trulia as a result. The ball is now in Zillow's court.

And here's why this is actually good news for sellers.

Your home is still visible on the MLS, atproperties.com, and dozens of other top home search sites where serious, motivated buyers are actively looking. Zillow is just one platform. When buyers can't find listings there, they go somewhere else. And they do.

More platforms mean more eyes on your home. More eyes mean more showings, more interest, and stronger offers. That is not a consolation prize. That is just how good marketing works.

This situation also reinforces something I genuinely believe. You have the right to choose how your home is marketed. A good agent builds a custom strategy around your goals, not around what is convenient for a search portal. Decisions about your home should be made with your success in mind, not a corporation's bottom line.

If Zillow has been your go-to for home searching, here are some great alternatives to bookmark right now:

Realtor.com, Redfin, Homes.com, atproperties.com, and Zenlist all pull directly from the MLS and will show you a complete, accurate picture of what is available in the Chicago area. Any of these will serve you well.

Zillow is not the MLS. The MLS is the foundation of how real estate works, the cooperative system that gives homes real, broad market exposure across hundreds of websites and platforms. That has not changed one bit.

If you have questions about what any of this means for your search or your sale, I am always happy to talk it through.