I interviewed Anthony Lamacchia on this episode of the HousingWire Daily podcast about mounting tensions over listing distribution and MLS rules. He is the founder and CEO of Lamacchia Realty and Crush It in Real Estate — and a fiery advocate for Realtors.
Lamacchia had a lot to say about the ongoing battle between Zillow, Compass and MRED and the disruption to the Chicago housing market last week. That’s when many consumers woke up to find that local listings had largely disappeared from Zillow but remained visible on the Compass website. (Read our coverage of the complicated backstory of that battle in this article: Everything you need to know about Zillow’s listing war with MRED and Compass).
Lamacchia lays much of the blame for the current listing chaos at the feet of Compass CEO Robert Reffkin, who has spearheaded the fight for companies to be able to market their properties as private listings. This puts Reffkin and Compass at odds with some multiple listings services (MLSs) and portals like Zillow.
In Lamacchia’s view, the dispute is part of a longer-running campaign by Reffkin to challenge NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy, which was designed to ensure that all buyers would have access to all property listings. Below is a summary of our conversation.
Lamacchia’s take: Zillow vs. Compass and the risk of a ‘listing war’
Lamacchia credited Reffkin for elevating the issue many agents have with Zillow but disagreed with the strategy. He said he understands the concern that “Zillow has found a great way to get in between the consumer and the house,” monetizing access through lead fees or referrals, but argued that restricting listings on major portals is not in consumers’ best interest.
He framed the Chicago blowup as a culmination of long-building friction, comparing it to a conflict that erupts only after years of underlying pressure. Once Compass and MRED reached an agreement, he said, the MLS “shut down Zillow’s feed” and Zillow “naturally fires back” via the courts.
The practical impact for Chicago-area consumers and sellers was immediate: for roughly 30 hours, many local listings vanished from Zillow but remained on Compass. Lamacchia said that if the outage had lasted a week or more, seller and agent backlash would have been severe, particularly for properties that were already sitting on the market.
“Sellers that have homes that aren’t selling… go searching online, and they don’t see their home on Zillow,” he said. Those clients, he argued, would quickly “go ballistic,” pressuring their agents, who would in turn pressure brokerage leadership.
Despite his critiques of Zillow over the years, Lamacchia said that in this particular dispute he sides with the portal because of the need for maximum listing exposure.
Clear Cooperation Policy
On Clear Cooperation, Lamacchia recalled being in the packed NAR meetings in San Francisco in 2019 when the policy was debated and ultimately adopted. Initially skeptical, he said that after hearing broker after broker describe listing hoarding and fair housing concerns in a low-inventory market,