Zillow blasts Compass’ ‘hidden listing scheme’ ahead of hearing
The first Compass-Zillow hearing begins Nov. 18. Plus, Batton class status denied; Lutz trial date is set; Alexander brothers sex trafficking trial to proceed.
Key points:
- The brokerage giant and the leading portal continue to lob accusations at each other as they prepare to argue in front of a judge next week.
- Two commissions lawsuits brought by buyers are proceeding as the Lutz case gets a trial date, while a class-action request in Batton is denied — a blow to the plaintiffs.
- Sex trafficking charges against luxury agents Tal and Oren Alexander (along with their brother Alon) will be heard by a jury after a judge rejected their dismissal motion.
Ahead of the first court hearing in Compass' antitrust suit against Zillow, the listing portal giant has filed a brief laying out its arguments for why the court should not grant the brokerage's request for a preliminary injunction.
Meanwhile, a judge rejected the plaintiffs' class certification motion in the Batton homebuyer commissions case — a win for the brokerage defendants — and the Lutz homebuyer commission case now has a trial date. Also this week, a judge denied the Alexander brothers' motion to dismiss the sex trafficking charges filed against them.
Zillow is 'not backing down'
Zillow's Nov. 12 filing frames the dispute as a fight for transparency. The portal maintains that its Listing Access Standards are a "reasonable response" to the anti-consumer harms of Compass' 3-phased marketing strategy, which Zillow calls a "hidden listing scheme."
"While Americans are struggling to access and afford housing, Compass wants to hide available listings from the public. Hidden listings harm consumers, agents and smaller brokerages; Zillow's standards protect against that harm," a Zillow spokesperson told Real Estate News in a statement.
"The Compass hidden listings scheme benefits only Compass; Zillow's standards benefit the entire marketplace," the spokesperson added. "Sellers deserve the widest possible audience, and buyers shouldn't have to wonder what homes they're not seeing. Real estate works when it's fair, equal, open and transparent, so Zillow is defending that transparency — and we're not backing down."
In its filing, Zillow denies Compass' allegations that Zillow is a monopolist and stresses that Compass has alleged "irreparable harm" from Zillow's standards in court while simultaneously reporting record revenue and declaring use of its 3-phased marketing strategy has remained unchanged.
The first hearing is set for Nov. 18-21 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
NAR, top franchisors notch a win in Batton case
A judge has stricken a class certification attempt in the homebuyer commissions case known as Batton.
Judge LaShonda A. Hunt of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division wrote in a Nov. 13 court filing that plaintiff Mya Batton and defendant Anywhere Real Estate "failed at resolving this matter among themselves," and now the plaintiff attorneys' motion for class certification "are stricken without prejudice," meaning they can refile in the future.
The order is a procedural win for all the defendants in the case — Anywhere, NAR, Keller Williams and RE/MAX —who have argued that the class improperly includes sellers whose claims were released in earlier settlements.
The parties were given a new deadline — Nov. 24 — by which time they "must meet and confer and file a joint status report setting forth what class certification/expert discovery remains, whether any of that can proceed or should be stayed until the Burnett appeal is resolved, and any other pertinent information," Hunt's order said.
The plaintiffs began seeking class certification in September, but Hunt expressed doubt about the proposed class, which she said she "can't really certify," during a hearing last week.
Florida homebuyer suit scheduled for trial
Another homebuyer commissions lawsuit, known as Lutz after its lead plaintiff, is now set for a two-week trial in Miami starting Aug. 24, 2026.
The suit, which includes nearly three dozen named plaintiffs, seeks nationwide class-action status. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in April 2024, it alleges HomeServices of America and Douglas Elliman conspired to enforce National Association of Realtors commission rules that violated antitrust laws and inflated homebuyer costs.
Though the court set a trial date, the case could very well be resolved before then. The defendants submitted a joint motion to dismiss the case in September. Both sides have asked the court for oral arguments on the motion, a request that is currently pending.
Alexander brothers trial to proceed
Luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander, as well as their brother Alon, have lost their bid to get the sex trafficking charges filed against them tossed out. The brothers' January trial will proceed as planned.
In court documents filed this week, Judge Valerie Caprioni of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District dismissed one charge that fell outside the statute of limitations but said the Alexanders must face the others.
"As much as Defendants want to characterize the charged conduct as just men behaving badly, that is not what the Indictment charges," Caprioni wrote in court documents obtained by Inman. Instead, the indictment alleges that "three grown men conspired to entice women and girls to travel in interstate and foreign commerce, to provide things of value to those women and girls, and to use force and drugs in order to have sexual contact with those victims," her order added.
Caprioni's order came just days after the brothers filed their full defamation lawsuit against The Real Deal, a case that alleges in part that the publication "intentionally and recklessly published a series of false and misleading stories accusing the Alexanders of rape and sexual abuse."