FTC Settles With Zillow and Redfin Over Rental Listing Agreement
The FTC and Zillow announced a settlement on August 24, 2026, ending the antitrust case over a 2025 partnership between Zillow and Redfin involving rental listings. The settlement, agreed to by the FTC and the state attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and Washington, resolves allegations that the two companies struck an illegal agreement to suppress competition in multifamily rental advertising.
The FTC sued Zillow and Redfin on September 30, 2025, alleging that Zillow paid Redfin $100 million plus a monthly fee over nine years in exchange for Redfin ending its contracts with advertising partners and agreeing not to compete with Zillow for multifamily listings. According to the FTC, Redfin shut down its internet listing services (ILS) business — the platforms property managers use to advertise rental units to prospective tenants — and exclusively reposted apartment listings from Zillow under the arrangement. The FTC alleged the deal stunted multifamily rental advertising competition, harming American renters and property managers.
The settlement requires Redfin to restart its own rental listings advertising business, which it wound down as part of the partnership. Redfin may continue syndicating rental listings from Zillow unencumbered by the anticompetitive restraints in the original deal. FTC
Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said the deal "delivers better, quicker, more certain results for renters and property management companies than would have been achieved after prevailing at trial." The case had been set for trial beginning August 24, the same day the settlement was announced.
The settlement caps a litigation path that Zillow had fought at multiple stages. A federal judge rejected Zillow and Redfin's motion to dismiss the FTC's lawsuit in May 2026, allowing the case to proceed. Zillow subsequently sought dismissal of the lawsuit, characterizing its rental partnership with Redfin as procompetitive. In July 2026, a court declined the FTC's request to decide the case before trial, clearing the way for Zillow to present its full case at trial.
Zillow published a statement on its newsroom announcing it had resolved the FTC lawsuit, reaffirming its partnership with Redfin and framing the outcome as expanding access to more housing options for renters. The Verge
Zillow and Redfin are two of the most prominent players in the ILS space. The FTC's theory treated the $100 million payment as effectively a market exit fee, compensating Redfin for withdrawing its competitive presence from multifamily rental advertising rather than for any legitimate service.
The structure at issue here is not unique to real estate. Pay-to-exclude agreements, where a dominant platform compensates a rival for ceasing to compete in a specific area, have drawn scrutiny across technology markets. Think of it as a larger company paying a smaller competitor to close up shop in a particular product category — not to acquire the business, but simply to remove the competition.
The remedy is structural rather than purely punitive. Redfin must rebuild the rental advertising operation it dismantled, restoring a competing bidder for multifamily listing spend. The settlement does not bar the Zillow-Redfin partnership outright; it removes the exclusivity and non-compete restraints that the FTC identified as the anticompetitive core of the deal.
For property managers and renters, the practical outcome is the reintroduction of a competitive advertising channel. Whether Redfin can rebuild the ILS business it shuttered, and how quickly, will determine whether the remedy produces meaningful competitive pressure or merely a nominal second option. The FTC's decision to settle rather than proceed to trial, despite a favorable pretrial posture, reflects a tradeoff between the certainty of a negotiated remedy and the risk and delay of litigation.
The broader context here is a clear signal to technology companies pursuing partnerships with direct competitors. Collaboration on distribution is permissible, but paying a rival to exit a market vertical remains squarely in the FTC's enforcement crosshairs. The settlement reinforces that boundary without requiring a full trial to do so.
