Hidden Zillow listings created fake supply shock, raising NYC rents, lawsuit says - Ars Technica
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This week, two New York City renters filed a class action complaint alleging that a brokerage business called Compass—which has been boycotting posting listings on free digital platforms like Zillow—has now delisted so many rental units that it has created a fake supply shock that is artificially raising rents.
According to plaintiffs, Peter Castaneda and Haley Gelfand, Compass has bought so many brokerage firms over the past decade-plus that it maintains a monopoly, controlling “over 80 percent of the rental unit listings available for renters in Manhattan based on 2025 data.”
With that monopoly, Compass can “literally dictate pricing for as much as 80 percent of Manhattan’s rental units,” renters argued. And now, Compass is allegedly trying to manipulate prices on other platforms, as well.
Supposedly scheming to raise rents in order to raise broker fees often pegged to rent prices, Compass went to war with Zillow, the most popular free real estate platform that never charges broker fees.
In New York City, a Zillow-owned platform called “StreetEasy” makes it easier for New Yorkers to find a unit without paying a broker fee. However, seemingly hoping to force more people to turn to brokers to find homes that couldn’t be found on free platforms, Compass started delisting thousands of homes from Zillow earlier this year. Renters’ complaint cited a Compass “playbook” that allegedly “involves hiding listings from the public” in an attempt to “enable its own agents to double-dip to increase revenue per transaction, boost its stock price, and effectively ignore the consumer.”
In response to the mass-delistings, Zillow announced new standards excluding those private listings from ever appearing on its sites. That move was designed to curb the practice of hiding listings, since sellers likely wouldn’t want to lose the option of listing on Zillow if brokers can’t find a buyer. But the retaliation prompted Compass to file an antitrust suit, claiming that Zillow was the one trying to monopolize listings. However, Compass voluntarily dismissed that suit in March after a judge ruled that Compass was unlikely to succeed on the merits, writing that it seems clear that Zillow can’t have a monopoly if home buyers like to research across different platforms.
Meanwhile, local and federal authorities have launched antitrust probes to investigate how Compass may be harming real estate markets. Behind one probe is US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.), who thinks Compass may be threatening to “create a two-tiered housing market where insiders pay for exclusive access to housing inventory and market data, while everyone else is shut out.”
An attorney who represents renters, Blake Hunter Yagman, told Ars that plaintiffs are looking forward to having their case heard in court.
“When a titan of an industry decides to choke off supply of an essential good or service, like housing, the implications can be swiftly vast and severe,” Yagman said. “New Yorkers already are facing affordability challenges which have evolved into a crisis—and that crisis is only compounded by high rent prices, which is the largest bill that most of us have to pay.”
Compass declined Ars’ request to comment.
But Zillow’s spokesperson weighed in on the class action complaint, telling Ars that, “when listings are deliberately hidden from public platforms, real consumers pay the price. This summer, New Yorkers have seen exactly that play out, with one dominant brokerage deciding which homes people get to see and further squeezing the NYC market during a housing crisis. Because StreetEasy exists to give every renter and buyer access to every available home, we support efforts to bring accountability to these practices.”
Rising rents linked to hidden listings
As regulators eye the situation, Compass’ fight with Zillow has already increased rents in New York, Castaneda and Gelfand alleged. For Castaneda, signing a lease for a one-bedroom in downtown Manhattan this August set his monthly rent at $5,270, which “far exceeds” what he might have paid if he signed his lease one month sooner when the “average/median asking rent price” in that area was $4,390, the complaint said.
“This price differential, or a portion of it, would not have existed but for the severe reduction in public listings of rental units on StreetEasy, where apartment rental prices are adjusted according to the law of supply and demand on the platform,”...