Zillow GroupOne of the big challenges facing Zillow in the wake of its acquisition of Trulia is whether the real estate company could quickly add direct feeds from Multiple Listing Services, the regional agencies that compile for-sale listings in different corners of the country.

The direct feeds provide up-to-the-date information on what properties are for sale — a critical component of Zillow’s model of providing relevant data to home shoppers.

This issue came to a head last month when ListHub — a unit of News Corp.-owned Move Inc. — said that it would terminate its feed of listings to Trulia, costing the Zillow-owned unit 25 percent to 40 percent of its direct listings. Zillow filed for a temporary restraining order to keep the feed going, and a judge ruled last week that the feed should continue to Trulia. Separately, Zillow and Move Inc.’s ListHub are set to end their partnership on listing feeds in April, costing Zillow a few hundred thousand listings.

A photo of Errol Samuelson.
Errol Samuelson

With that story as a backdrop, Zillow today offered an update on its own efforts to compile direct feeds from multiple listing services, an effort that was hampered over the past 12 months when newly-appointed Zillow executive Errol Samuelson — the person working deals with MLSes — was sidelined by Move Inc. who successfully argued in front of a judge that the executive should be forbidden from working in certain capacities at Zillow.

At the time, the judge wrote that Samuelson, who allegedly violated terms of his employment agreement with Move Inc. by jumping to Zillow, would be prevented from obtaining “direct feeds of listing data from Multiple Listing Services, real estate brokers, franchisors or associations.”

Even with Samuelson unable to work for a few more weeks, Zillow continues to storm ahead with MLS partnerships, adding new partners in Utah, Alabama, California and other states. In total, Zillow added 25 new MLS partners last month.

“The demand from the industry to build a direct relationship with Zillow has been incredible and the momentum is picking up,” said Curt Beardsley, Zillow vice president of industry development. “We have seen a tremendous response from MLS and industry leaders who want to ensure their listings are on Zillow in a timely and accurate fashion, and know a direct feed is the best way to guarantee it.”

Spencer Rascoff
Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff

In remarks last month following the acquisition of Trulia, Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff spelled out the importance of the MLS deals, making a plea for listing providers to send their data to Zillow.

“When we announced that we were parting ways with News Corp. a couple months ago, we were really freed from the constraint of being reliant on a competitor for listings — a competitor whose incentive was to continue to send Zillow inferior listings in order to advertise that their own Web site had higher quality listings,” Rascoff said. “That was a liberating moment, and we have been fortunate in the last several months going and getting direct listings feeds from MLS after MLS.”

Here are the 25 new partners that have joined Zillow.

Big Water MLS – Big Water, Utah
Duck Creek MLS – Duck Creek, Utah
Fredonia MLS – Fredonia, Ariz.
Gila Valley MLS – Safford, Ariz.
Globe/Miami MLS – Globe, Arizona
Greenbrier Valley Association Board of REALTORS – Charleston, WV
Gulf Coast MLS – Mobile, Ala.
Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, Inc. – White Plains, N.Y.
Idyllwild Association of REALTORS – Idyllwild, Calif.
Inyo County MLS – Bishop, Calif.
Kanab MLS – Kanab, Utah
Kern River Lake Isabella Board of REALTORS – Lake Isabella, Calif.
Lake County MLS – Lakeview, Ore.
Lawton Board of Realtor – Lawton, Okla.
Lexington Bluegrass Board Association of REALTORS – Lexington, Ky.
Mesquite Real Estate Association MLS – Mesquite, Nev.
Mid Hudson MLS – Dutchess County, N.Y.
Northwest Arizona MLS – Beaver Dam, Ariz.
Northwest Wyoming Board of Realtors – Cody, Wyo.
Page Lake Powell MLS – Page, Ariz.
Port Neches, Port Arthur, Nederland Board of Realtors – Nederland, Texas
Snake River Regional MLS – Idaho Falls, Idaho
Uvalde Board of Realtors – Uvalde, Texas
Water Wonderland MLS Board of Realtors – Gaylord, Mich.
Westcliffe Listing Service – Westcliffe, Colo.
These 25 new MLSs join new partners including Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc., Georgia MLS, Northeast Florida MLS, and others.

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