ZILLOW AND REDFIN SETTLE FTC ANTITRUST CASE OVER RENTAL LISTINGS

Zillow and Redfin have reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and the state attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and Washington, ending legal action over a 2025 partnership. The settlement was announced on Monday as the case was scheduled to proceed to trial. The FTC had alleged that the partnership arrangement violated antitrust law by reducing competition in the rental-listing market.

Under the original deal, Redfin agreed to display Zillow's rental listings on its websites and wind down its own rental advertising business, potentially keeping Redfin out of direct competition with Zillow for as long as nine years. Redfin owns Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com, two major rental-listing platforms. The FTC claimed the arrangement was designed to reduce competition, leaving fewer options and higher prices for renters and property management companies. The settlement proposal requires Redfin to restart its own rental listings advertising business whilst continuing to syndicate Zillow's listings free from the anticompetitive restrictions in the original agreement.

Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, stated that the settlement "delivers better, quicker, more certain results for both renters and property management companies than we would have been able to achieve after prevailing at trial." The settlement follows other recent antitrust resolutions reached by the Trump administration, including cases involving Live Nation-Ticketmaster and Realpage.