Nineteen consumer advocacy organizations sent a letter Wednesday to the National Association of Attorneys General, urging state attorneys general to investigate Zillow, Compass and other major real estate platforms over practices the groups say have made housing less affordable nationwide.
The letter, addressed to Connecticut Attorney General William Tong as president of the association, was signed by groups including the American Economic Liberties Project, the Consumer Federation of America and the Open Markets Institute.
The letter follows an August 24 settlement between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), five states and Zillow over a $100 million deal in which Zillow had paid rival Redfin to exit the online rental listings market. The groups argue the settlement lets Zillow keep “the syndication partnership, the customer relationships and the scale the arrangement produced,” while Redfin must rebuild from scratch.
Under the settlement’s terms, Redfin must reenter the rental advertising business within six months, building a new customer portal, setting up a billing system, hiring a sales team and running advertisements to attract customers. Zillow, meanwhile, must let existing customers exit or renegotiate their contracts without penalty for nine months after Redfin relaunches, and must continue sharing its rental listings with Redfin.
The letter also accuses platforms of routing “Contact Agent” inquiries to brokers who pay referral fees rather than to listing agents, and criticizes Compass’s practice of marketing homes within its own network before listing them publicly. It cites the National Association of Realtors’ 2024 antitrust settlement as evidence that commission-fixing practices have persisted.
The coalition asked for a multistate working group to examine Zillow’s settlement compliance, mortgage-related kickback arrangements, Compass’s private listing practices and the company’s acquisition of Anywhere.
The FTC’s underlying case traces to a October 2025 lawsuit accusing Zillow and Redfin of violating the Sherman and Clayton Acts through agreements that eliminated rental-advertising competition. The FTC alleged Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to exit the multifamily rental ad business, restrict its listings to Zillow’s for large buildings, and stay out of the market for up to nine years, in a sector where Zillow, Redfin and CoStar controlled over 85 percent of nationwide revenue.
