FTC, Zillow and Redfin gear up for courtroom showdown
The trial, which is scheduled to begin on Aug. 24, is about whether a Zillow-Redfin rental listings syndication deal is pro-consumer or violates antitrust laws.
Zillow and Redfin are about to enter a new phase of government scrutiny as a lawsuit filed last fall by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) heads to trial next week.
The federal government has in recent years expressed interest in how agent commissions and real estate technology impact consumers via various legal actions. In this lawsuit, it is turning its attention to a deal that the FTC alleges reduces competition in a specific market.
What this case is about: The FTC filed its lawsuit against Zillow and Redfin in September 2025, months after the companies announced a $100 million syndication deal that made Zillow the exclusive provider of multifamily rental listings on Redfin and on Redfin's owned rental sites, Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com.
In its original filing, the FTC alleged that the partnership eliminated an independent competitor in what it called an already concentrated advertising market — "one that's critical for renters, property managers and the health of the overall U.S. housing market," Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said in a news release issued last fall. The FTC contends that the deal violates federal antitrust laws.
Both Zillow and Redfin have contended that the deal is pro-competitive and pro-consumer by expanding multifamily listings across multiple platforms.
Federal case merged: A day after the FTC filed its lawsuit, attorneys general in five states — Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and Washington — joined in suing Zillow and Redfin over the syndication deal. A judge consolidated the cases a couple of months later.
A failed effort to get the case tossed: In January, Zillow and Redfin filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that renters and property managers alike "benefit from this Partnership."
"Plaintiffs have not alleged any harm to renters using the Zillow and Redfin listing services, have not pled markets that capture the full breadth of competition for rental advertising, and have not even tried to allege that Defendants have sufficient market power to harm competition," the Jan. 13 motion to dismiss said. "Each of those pleading failures warrants dismissal in its own right."
The motion was denied in May.
The judge overseeing the case, Anthony J. Trenga, later denied the FTC's request for a partial summary judgement to declare the rental deal "presumptively unlawful," setting the stage for the trial.
Where the trial will be held: The trial is slated to begin on Aug. 24. It will be held in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Alexandria Division.