This week, Zillow alerted us (and the world) that they were changing their scope of services and how they currently interact with local sellers, buyers, MLSs and agents. While we are just beginning to assess the changes this might bring to our market place, we all should be very aware that if you speak with competitors about other competitors, significant anti-trust issues that can arise. Speak and act carefully.  Beginning first in Atlanta, Phoenix and Tucson ‘Zillow Offers’ customers will work from start to finish with Zillow employees under a licensed brokerage entity, Zillow Homes. All Zillow-owned homes will be listed in MLSs, with commissions paid to agents representing buyers. They also plan to continue to expand their Premier Agent business and partnerships, including connecting other interested buyers and sellers to Zillow Premier Agents.

They are also changing the way they collect listing data, no longer being a syndication partner of the MLS (see your data distribution tab in FlexMLS) where members opt-in or out by listing, but rather taking data as a Participant in the local MLS through the Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feed program many of you use on your own websites.  Read more about these changes directly from Zillow. We will keep you posted as this develops.