Zillow Preview adds new partner with RealScout integration
The partnership, announced six months after Preview first debuted, is expected to launch before the end of the year to help “agents win,” the companies said.
Six months after shaking up the industrywide conversation about pre-market listings, Zillow has announced that its Preview product is coming soon to RealScout, a digital client relationship and lead follow-up platform that allows agents to create custom home searches for buyers.
The integration, which the companies announced Tuesday, is slated to launch later this year.
An expanded partnership: Once the integration is live, Preview listings will be accessible directly within RealScout's home search, expanding the reach of these pre-market listings to a network that serves over 100,000 real estate professionals across the U.S.
The partnership brings "more exposure" and "more opportunity" to homesellers, Zillow Chief Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson said in a statement.
The move builds on the companies' preexisting partnership via Follow Up Boss, with RealScout serving as one of the CRM's most popular integrations, according to a news release.
How the partnership will work: Agents whose brokerages have opted in to Zillow Preview will be able to see all Preview listings directly in RealScout for the duration of the home's allotted pre-marketing period. Once that time ends, the listing will be active in the MLS.
Access to Zillow Preview is something RealScout's agents "have been asking for since the offering launched this spring," RealScout Co-founder and CEO Andrew Flachner said.
Helping 'agents win': Agents "should be able to show their buyers the full picture of what's available," according to Samuelson.
"By bringing Zillow Preview listings into RealScout, we're extending that transparency into an environment where agents and buyers are already working together. That's good for sellers, good for buyers and good for agents," Samuelson said.
"Agents win when their clients trust that searching with them means having access to the broadest set of listings," Flachner said.
"Sellers should be able to choose how they bring a home to market. Buyers shouldn't have to switch agents or brokerages just to discover it," he continued. "Bringing Zillow Preview to RealScout helps deliver both."
How we got here: Zillow introduced its Preview product in March, though former COO Jun Choo has said that the idea behind it began germinating two years prior to its official debut. The product, which enables homebuyers to view and save pre-market listings on Zillow before those homes appear on the MLS, launched with five initial brokerage partners but quickly added dozens more.
The rollout sparked a new wave of industry debate about pre-market and private listings, with some advocates suggesting the move was positive for the housing market while others worried it could bring new scrutiny from federal regulators. Flachner emerged as an early supporter, declaring at the time that Preview "gives sellers more control over how they come to market, without losing access to the largest audience of buyers."