Anyone who has ever bought or sold a home in Florida or elsewhere knows how complicated and stressful it can be. Any number of legal issues may arise between prospective buyers and sellers, some more easily resolved than others. A recent situation has developed into full blown real estate disputes with a lawsuit filed against the Zillow Group company.
The antitrust claim asserts that The company is giving preferential treatment to certain brokers that is causing great disadvantage to other sellers. Zillow Group provides home value estimates known as Zestimates. These estimated valuations are often placed on home sales listing sites.
The problem began when a New Jersey based company that owns a multi-million dollar property attempted to sell it in 2017. Unfortunately, it never sold and the company blames the Zestimate assigned to the property on its website. The estimate was apparently half the amount of the listing price.
The company says it tried to rectify the situation by contacting Zillow Group and asking it to move the Zestimate to a more obscure location on the page as it appears to have done for some other brokerages. The lawsuit came not long after Zillow Group replied, saying it was not able to do that because moving the Zestimate is a special treatment it gives to certain brokers with whom it has agreements. The company then filed the antitrust lawsuit, claiming this preferential treatment with certain brokers is hurting fair competition in the housing market. Anyone facing similar real estate disputes in Florida can seek support from an experienced real estate law attorney in the area.
Source: inman.com, “Zillow Sued Over Zestimate Display: Making Sense Of The Dispute“, Andrea V. Brambila, Jan. 18, 2018
