Thousands of Chicago-area home listings just went dark on Zillow. Here’s why | CNN Business

Homebuyers browsing Zillow across parts of the Midwest on Wednesday may find thousands of incomplete or outdated listings, after a mounting legal fight disrupted the flow of new listings to the platform. The listings began disappearing on Wednesday because Midwest Real Estate Data, or MRED, cut off Zillow’s access to its regional home-listing database serving Chicago and its surrounding areas. On Wednesday morning, before access was cut off, there were nearly 5,000 home listings in Chicago on Zillow, according to a screenshot provided to CNN by Compass. By Wednesday afternoon, that number had dropped to just over 2,000 listings. The move by MRED, which has accused Zillow of violating its licensing rules, marks an escalation in the fight over so-called private listings — homes marketed to select buyers before appearing on public home-search websites. Now, the messy dispute is directly affecting what homes buyers and sellers can see online. Last year, Zillow announced a new rule for agents and brokerages: A home listing marketed to any consumers must be published on Zillow within one day, or the listing would be banned. The company said the rules were in the interest of transpare