Zillow Preview adds pre market listings with brokerage branding

When Compass announced its partnership with Redfin and Rocket Companies to publish its coming soon listings on Redfin’s platform many wondered how Zillow and other brokerages would respond. Well, the housing industry now has its answer. On Tuesday, Zillow announced the debut of Zillow Preview, a new offering providing agents and their sellers with the option to publicly pre-market their listings before the properties transition to an active listing status. 

To launch Zillow Preview, Zillow is partnering with Keller Williams, REMAX, HomeServices of America, United Real Estate and Side to provide their agents with access to the product. 

Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s chief industry development officer, told HousingWire that his company came to these partnerships by approaching companies and brokerages that they knew were like-minded in their views of market transparency. 

While this program is launching with just these five brokerage and franchisor partners, Samuelson said it is open to any brokerage or franchisor who shares a similar point of view on market liquidity and transparency. 

Gary Keller speaks out

“We believe an open market serves consumers the best,” Gary Keller, the executive chairman and co-founder of Keller Williams, said in a statement. “Sellers should have the opportunity to reach the broadest pool of potential buyers if they choose to do so, because broad exposure generally benefits the homeowner.”

However, Keller added that sellers should also be able to retain the right to decide how their property is marketed.

“Information, marketing plan, timing, showing rules and offer management — those decisions belong to the homeowner,” Keller said. “Our job as professionals is to fully disclose and explain the options and let the seller decide.” 

Chris Czarnecki, the CEO and president of Keller Williams added that pre-marketing a listing can allow sellers to create energy and demand around their listing. 

“When shared with a national consumer portal, these listings stop being surfaced just for agents and private networks and are now available to everyone,” he said in a statement. “Over time, more sellers may expect their agents to use coming soon-type marketing to build that early momentum. That’s why we chose to roll this out with Zillow, the most visited consumer housing search portal in the country.”

Other brokerage leaders excited about launch

Chris Kelly, the CEO of HomeServices of America, also expressed excitement over his firm’s involvement with the initial launch of Zillow Preview. 

“We want our agents’ listings in front of the largest possible audience of serious buyers, especially at the beginning of the marketing cycle,” Kelly told HousingWire in an emailed statement. “Zillow reaches well over 200 million unique visitors each month, so participating in the Preview program gives our sellers immediate visibility where consumers are already searching. Just as important, the structure of the program keeps the listing agent at the center of the relationship while also creating new referral opportunities for our agents and brokerage. In a market where everyone is experimenting with new distribution models, we think this approach strikes the right balance between exposure, consumer access and agent value.”

Guy Gal, the co-founder and CEO of Side, expressed a similar view, telling HousingWire that he and his team want to ensure that the agents and teams brokered with Side have access to every competitive advantage possible.

“Zillow Preview puts their listings in front of 235 million users, with their brand front and center. No private network can match that,” Gal told HousingWire via email. “We believe in transparency and accessibility in real estate, and if a seller wants to pre-market, this is the best way to do that while still protecting buyers’ access to available homes.”

At REMAX, CEO Erik Carlson also said that his firm believes that the real estate market works best when information is transparent and accessible by everyone.

“Participating in Zillow Preview aligns with that belief by giving buyers earlier visibility into what’s coming to market while helping sellers reach a wider audience from the very start. For REMAX agents, it’s another way for them to demonstrate value to their clients while also helping them win more listings,” Carlson wrote in an emailed statement. “Ultimately, it’s about helping REMAX professionals better serve clients at one of the most important moments of their lives.”

United Real Estate did not immediately return HousingWire’s request for comment.

How it works

During the preview period, submitted listings are publicly visible and receive priority placement in search and save-home alerts. All Zillow Preview listings must have at least one listing photo, the full address and property specification, listing description, year built, tax and HOA information, showing instructions, price, listing contract day and expected on-market date.

“We’ve made a lot of noise in the past year about listing transparency and how sellers benefit from broad exposure and buyers deserve equal access to inventory and shouldn’t be forced to work with a particular brokerage to get access to inventory,” Samuelson told HousingWire. “So, the idea of the preview is to provide exposure to these pre-active listings to everybody. We think it is a continuation of our work for transparency.” 

The listings will feature the branding of their listing brokerage. The listing agents will receive information on the number of views, saves, shares and tour requests each preview listing receives. Zillow said agents and their sellers can then use this information to help them inform pricing and marketing decisions before the listing goes live. 

“We have seen a trend where some brokers and sellers want to premarket listings, maybe a property is being renovated or the seller isn’t ready to do showings yet, so brokers are pre-marketing those listings, but putting them behind a gate and using them as a way to attract buyer to work exclusively with their company or using it to recruit agents. We think that over time that is fundamentally damaging for the real estate market,” Samuelson said.

Samuelson added that Zillow has been working on this product for more than six months. 

Set up to operate within local MLS frameworks

Zillow said the previews are structured to operate within local MLS frameworks, however agents are responsible for understanding and complying with their local MLS rules regarding pre-marketing and statuses like coming soon. 

“Different MLSs have different time periods during which a brokerage can market a listing before it goes into the MLS. For a lot of them that is one business day, so in that case the listing could be in the preview status for one business day,” Samuelson said. “Once we receive a listing with that same address from the MLS, then the preview listing is taken down and replaced with the active listing.” 

The company also clarified that Zillow Preview is consistent with its Listing Access Standards policy, which bans listings that are publicly marketed for more than one business day prior to being available on display on a VOW or IDX-powered listing platform. 

“What we think is problematic is when companies make consumers register with them to see additional inventory in an area,” Samuelson said. “We think that is hiding inventory for the benefit of the broker, not for the benefit of the buyer or seller, so those listings that are marketed that way will continue to not be shown on Zillow. True office exclusives are fine, but listing where there is a foot in each camp, where a broker says my listings are available to anybody so long as you are willing to work with my brokers, those are still a problem.” 

Consumers viewing Zillow Preview listings will be able to contact the listing agent directly via the “Contact Agent” button or schedule a tour of the property after the listing becomes active with the help of a Zillow Preferred buyer’s agent through the “Schedule a Tour” button. Agents with Zillow Preview listings will not be charged for any leads they obtain through the contact agent button on their own listings when they are in the preview status.

Samuelson said that if a Zillow Preview listing generates a buyer lead that later closes with a Zillow Preferred agent, the listing agent will receive a referral fee equal to 10% of the buyer’s agent commission.

“That is something that we are choosing to pay, it does not change the economics for the agents,” Samuelson said. 

The companies said they expect the Zillow Preview listings to be live on brokerage websites as well as Zillow-affiliated sites and applications starting in April 2026. 

“We think the difference between what we are doing and what others are doing is that this is about providing access to listings for everybody without steering a consumer to work with a particular brokerage or without agents feeling pressured to join a particular brokerage in order to gain access to inventory,” Samuelson said. “The whole goal here is to shine sunlight on the listings and make sure everybody can see what’s in the market. We think that is pro competitive, pro consumer, and we think in the long run will be the winning strategy.”

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