Redfin Was Paid $100 Million to Leave the Rental Listings Business. The FTC Has Ordered It Back In.

Antitrust cases usually end with a payment, a divestiture or a promise to stop doing something. This one ends with a company being required to re-enter a market it was paid to leave.

The agreement at issue

In February 2025 Zillow paid Redfin $100 million. In exchange, according to the FTC, Redfin shut down its internet listing services business, agreed to repost apartment listings from Zillow exclusively, transferred its customers across, and undertook to stay out of the market for up to nine years. The properties on each side were Zillow Rentals, Trulia and HotPads against Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com.

The FTC charged Zillow Group Inc., Zillow Inc. and Redfin Corporation in September 2025, alleging the arrangement dismantled Redfin as a competitor in online rental advertising. Five states joined the complaint: Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and Washington.

What the order requires

• Redfin must restart its internet listing services business within six months, hire a general manager, salespeople and customer support staff, and advertise the relaunched business.
• Redfin has committed to multiyear investment obligations, described in the announcement as millions of dollars, and faces monetary penalties for non-compliance.
• Zillow must provide employee information so Redfin can recruit, and must waive noncompete and anti-poaching restrictions.
• For nine months after the relaunch, Zillow's existing listing customers may renegotiate their contracts without penalty.
• Both companies must notify the FTC before entering rental property syndication agreements that carry competitive restrictions.

The order runs for ten years.

This settlement unwinds an agreement under which Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to stop competing.

What happened to the listings in the meantime

Since the syndication partnership began, multifamily properties on Redfin's websites nearly quadrupled and multifamily properties on Zillow's websites grew almost 40%, according to reporting on the settlement. Redfin is expected back in the market in 2027, with both companies offering standalone multifamily advertising products that year.

Why it matters to renters

Listing sites are where landlords advertise and where advertising is priced. That cost sits on the landlord's side of the ledger, not the renter's, but it is an operating expense like any other. The FTC's theory was that removing a competitor let it rise. The order does not set prices. It puts a second seller back on the field and gives Zillow's current customers a nine-month window in which to say so at the negotiating table.