What Google’s Home Listings Test Means for Fractured MLS Scene

Google is getting back in the listings game.

Five months after the search engine first tested displaying home listings in its sponsored results, the search engine re-rolled out the test to select markets around the country. The test is being run through a partnership with AI-enabled brokerage HouseCanary, which receives listing information through Multiple Listing Services.

The company is testing the displays using listing information from three MLSes: the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, San Diego MLS and My State MLS, a nationwide service.

The latest rollout shows HouseCanary and Google now appear to be playing ball with other brokerages and MLSes. In the initial test, HouseCanary came under fire for relying on its brokerage status to funnel listings to Google in what some said appeared to be a violation of content-sharing agreements established by MLSes that state the only members of a listing service can display another broker’s listings.

This time, in addition to striking deals with several MLSes, HouseCanary is also using a built-in partnership with eXp Realty, which announced in April it would syndicate its pre-MLS listings directly to HouseCanary’s listing website, ComeHome.com.

HouseCanary is also actively courting other agents and listing services this time around. The company published a webpage for the pilot program that allows agents to express interest in participating, which will “build a more compelling case” for MLS participation, the site states.

The pivot to working directly with brokerages and MLSes “cracks open a new wave of listing syndication,” said WAV Group CEO Victor Lund, who added that the change to receiving broker consent likely avoids any rule violation concerns.

Portals under fire

The potential for a consumer-facing behemoth like Google to enter the platform wars has already stoked fears about the future of the industry’s platforms like Zillow, Realtor.com and Homes.com.

The test, BTIG analyst Jake Fuller wrote in an investor note on Monday, “could amount to a direct challenge to the portal models of Zillow & CoStar’s Homes.com.”

Portals have already had to tweak their business models as a result of the broader breakdown of the rules established by the National Association of Realtors and the MLS around the management of listing data. Last year, NAR rolled back a series of policies that required brokers to syndicate their listings through the MLS nearly immediately.

Portals typically rely on MLS data feeds to display listings, but those have become shakier sources of information as brokerages withhold their listings from MLS syndication for longer periods of time. In some instances, the listing services themselves have threatened to withhold listings from platforms: Chicago-area Midwest Real Estate Data shut off its data feed to Zillow as a result of Zillow’s efforts to block listings marketed in private channels.

As the MLS landscape fractures, portals have started inking deals with brokerages directly to display their listings before they are routed to the MLS.

In February, Compass and Redfin announced a partnership in which Compass would syndicate its pre-MLS listings directly to Redfin, marking one of the first major instances in which listings would go directly to one portal before the others. Zillow followed suit weeks later, inking deals with dozens of major brokerages, including Keller Williams and REMAX. EXp announced similar partnerships with Home.com, Realtor.com and ComeHome.com, HouseCanary’s search portal.

The competitive advantage for portals thus far has been their consumer reach, which agents and sellers are loath to give up. The introduction of Google, the most visited website in the world according to Similarweb, challenges that supremacy.

Google’s “reach and ability to give its own ad products prime placement in search results makes this a concern should it decide to expand the test,” Fuller wrote. “This is how [Zillow] historically monetized listings.”

Matt McGee, a real estate search engine optimization expert, pointed to Google’s foray into the travel industry with Google Flights as an example of what the product could ultimately look like, if not immediately.

“I don’t think it’s that much of a game changer,” he said of the test right now. “But what it might look like a few years from now — that could be really significant.”

McGee cautioned that Google is constantly testing products and often later rolling them back. “The question is, does Google think they can deliver a better home search experience for the user than what’s out there now,” he said.

Other competitors on the horizon

Even if Google does not develop a fully-functional home listing platform, there are major technology players that could further disrupt the listings ecosystem.

Real estate lawyer Marx David Sterbcow said he expects AI tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, to become dominant players in real estate search sooner than the industry may realize.

“Even with all these portals out there, I just don’t know how they’re going to survive. They’re truly dependent on the MLS model,” he said.

The loosening of listing data restrictions, which has allowed for listings to be displayed around the internet without being on the MLS, will allow broad-based search engines and AI tools to compile complete listing datasets, according to Sterbcow. The shift will also make it more difficult for platforms reliant on data feeds to do the same.

“The test becomes even more potentially problematic as we think about AI-related risk in the real estate vertical,” Fuller wrote in his note. “If [Google] can directly access & display listings w/a means to monetize, it is less clear where [Zillow] might fit in.”

For brokerages, the dream scenario is that their listings get exposure through heavily-trafficked search engines like Google or ChatGPT without paying referral fees to Zillow.

But Lund said any rush to publish listings on other third-party sites may just leave brokers in the same place they started.

“Hopefully, brokers make wise decisions on this data license, or they may just be creating the next competition that taxes them on their listings through paid lead programs, paid advertising programs, and referral fees,” he said.