05/21/2026
If you haven't heard by now, let me briefly fill you in.
For reference: MRED= Midwest Real Estate Database, aka. the Chicagoland MLS that ALL Chicagoland brokerages use.
Last year, Zillow.com attempted to force sellers onto their platform by introducing a policy that would ban any listing marketed off Zillow for more than one day. This includes the "coming soon" homes, "private network" on MRED, "private exclusives" with your broker, and more. This policy directly targets pre-marketing strategies that allow sellers to gather valuable insights and build demand before a listing goes live. However, independent research and MRED's own studies show that homes pre-marketed off Zillow actually sell for more money, in a shorter amount of time, at a higher percentage of asking price. This is a violation of licensing agreements.
MRED told Zillow to be compliant or lose thousands of home listings. Zillow then filed a lawsuit against MRED without responding to MRED's request. Here is the press release from MRED dated May 20th: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/05/20/3298655/0/en/mred-suspends-listing-data-feeds-to-zillow-group.html
So now, any information on Zillow or Trulia that is shown, is out-of-date. The information will not update, and new listings will not be sent to either 3rd party website until it's resolved.
While it seems like it's bad for consumers, and in a way it certainly could be, if you have the right agent, you won't have to worry. For both buyers and sellers, Zillow's practices have long been deceiving, and that is not the only platform to find or sell homes. Want to know more? Feel free to ask. I may not have all the answers as this is a fluid situation, but I would be happy to tell you what I do know. A good agent will downplay all this and try to settle your worries on surface-level. A great agent will settle all fears from deep down, be transparent and know exactly how to get you exactly what you are looking for.
