Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Realtor.com goes Zen

Realtor.com® Acquires Zenlist

“We’re excited to join the team at Realtor.com® and view this acquisition as an incredible opportunity for our customers and team,” said Tom MacLeod, founder and CEO at Zenlist. “By tapping into Realtor.com®‘s trusted brand and scale, we’ll be able to enhance our platform, broaden our offerings, and continue delivering top-tier services and tools to even more industry partners and professionals.”

This makes a ton of sense, Realtor.com needs to move closer to the agent. It will be interesting to see if this helps Zenlist scale more quickly using Realtor.com’s “non-IDX” data.

What I also like about this deal is that Realtor.com gains a ton of young talent. Along with Zenlist CEO Tom MacLeod (who joined me as a guest on my Listing Bits podcast), there’s the super-smart Eileen Romito, VP of Sales and Operations, whom I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing and who has become a respected thought leader in the industry — and the stylish Andrea Bandio, Zenlist’s VP of Product and Design. I’ve highlighted Mr. Bandio before on this blog.

Congrats to Tom and the rest of the team!

Listing chaos

CCP and Office Exclusives from the perspective of product execution

“If we head toward a more fragmented model where brokerages run their own exclusive listings, data quality has to be priority number one. The current MLS system, for all its quirks, has driven huge advances in data sharing and usability. Ditching that without a solid replacement could spell chaos—and consumers, who’ve gotten used to reliable info, would be the first to lose it.

It all sounds great on paper: We’re a large brokerage, we have tons of listings, and people will come to us because of our inventory. But in 2025, there’s a basic expectation for client user experience that sets a very high bar, and frustrated clients are the last thing you want!”

Andrea Badino, VP of product and design at Zenlist, has some great points here. In a world where listings are everywhere but the MLS, what happens? With a decision on CCP looming it’s important to consider all the consequences.

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