FTC settles antitrust case against Zillow and Redfin over $100 million rental-listings deal

The Federal Trade Commission and Zillow reached a settlement Monday, hours before trial was set to begin, resolving antitrust claims that the real estate giant illegally paid rival Redfin $100 million to abandon the online rental-listings market. The deal forces Redfin to rebuild a competing rentals-advertising business within six months, while allowing the companies' broader listings partnership to continue for years to come.

What happened

The stipulated order, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, resolves a case the FTC brought last September alongside Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and Washington state. The original complaint accused Zillow of paying Redfin to exit the internet-listing-services market for multifamily rentals, exclusively repost Zillow's apartment listings, hand over its advertising customers, and stay out of the rentals business for up to nine years — a deal struck in February 2025 that led Redfin to lay off hundreds of employees.

Trial in the consolidated federal and state cases was scheduled to open Monday. Instead, the parties filed a stipulated final order for equitable relief, ending the litigation without a trial and without any admission of wrongdoing by Zillow.

The terms

Under the 10-year order, Redfin must relaunch a fully staffed, actively marketed rental-listings advertising business within six months, carrying materially more listings than it did before the 2025 deal, and faces financial penalties if it misses that deadline. Zillow must lift noncompete restrictions so Redfin can rehire staff let go during the wind-down. Existing advertising customers get a nine-month window to renegotiate their contracts with either company without penalty, and both companies must notify the FTC before entering any future syndication agreement that restricts competition.

The companies' underlying listings-syndication partnership — under which Redfin reposts Zillow's rental inventory — will continue through at least June 30, 2030. Starting in 2027, both Zillow and Redfin will also be free to sell standalone multifamily advertising products that compete directly with one another, something the original 2025 agreement had prohibited. Court filings show the companies will pay a combined amount described as immaterial, reported elsewhere at roughly $2 million, to reimburse the states' litigation costs. Full terms are laid out in the FTC's case docket.

The numbers

The case turned on a single figure: the $100 million Zillow paid Redfin in February 2025 to exit the multifamily rental-advertising market, a sum regulators said was large enough to make walking away from competition more profitable for Redfin than continuing to fight for advertisers. Under the new order, Redfin has committed tens of millions of dollars over the next several years to rebuild the operation it dismantled, this time with a mandate to launch with a larger listings base than it carried before the original deal. The nine-month customer renegotiation window and the six-month relaunch deadline are both enforceable terms of the order, meaning Redfin faces monetary penalties, not just reputational cost, if it fails to hit the restart date.

Background

Zillow and Redfin were once head-to-head competitors in home search before striking their rental-syndication arrangement last year. The FTC's Bureau of Competition argued the $100 million payment amounted to a textbook "pay-to-not-compete" scheme that harmed both renters, who lost a competing source of listings, and property managers, who lost a competing advertising outlet. A federal judge rejected the companies' motion to dismiss earlier this year, setting the case on a path toward Monday's scheduled trial before the last-minute settlement intervened. Redfin has since been acquired by Rocket Companies. The five states that joined the FTC's case — Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and Washington — pursued parallel claims under their own state antitrust statutes, a coordination between federal and state enforcers that has become increasingly common in tech and real estate antitrust cases over the past several years.

Who is affected

Renters searching multifamily listings across Zillow's network — which includes Trulia, HotPads, Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com — as well as on Redfin's own site, are the settlement's intended beneficiaries, regaining a second major advertising channel competing for property managers' business. Zillow said that since the original partnership began, multifamily listings on Redfin's platforms had nearly quadrupled while its own multifamily listings grew about 40 percent, figures it cited as evidence the arrangement already benefited consumers even as regulators pursued the case.

Reaction

"This kind of payment to a competitor to exit a market and stop competing violates the antitrust laws," said Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, of the original complaint. On the settlement, he said it "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, including firm and enforceable commitments by Redfin to relaunch its rentals advertising business."

Zillow framed the outcome as vindication of its business model. "This resolution is a win for renters and multifamily housing providers," said Michael Sherman, general manager and senior vice president of Zillow Rentals, in a statement carried by The Real Deal. "Now, with the ability to offer more multifamily advertising solutions in addition to the existing partnership, we can do even more to support the marketplace." A Redfin spokesperson called the deal "a significant win for Redfin and consumers across the country," noting it lets the company keep the Zillow partnership "while building and investing in a standalone rentals business of our own."

What happens next

The order still needs formal entry by the presiding federal judge before its deadlines begin running. Once entered, Redfin's six-month clock to relaunch its rentals-advertising business starts immediately, as does the nine-month window for customers to renegotiate contracts. Property managers and renters should expect to see Redfin rebuilding its rental-listing inventory over the coming months, while both companies prepare, ahead of 2027, to roll out the standalone advertising products the settlement newly permits.