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In the battle for digital real estate dominance, Zillow and Homes.com are charting different courses. Experts point to questions regarding agent support, lead ownership and consumer experience as being at the heart of debate.
Real estate coach Darryl Davis and industry technology strategist Mike DelPrete offered insider perspectives on this platform rivalry — pulling back the curtain on what it really means for agents, buyers and sellers.
Both Davis and DelPrete agree that the platform contrast is not simply about functionality — it’s philosophical.
Zillow: A lead-gen platform for Premier Agents
“Zillow’s model is, they take an agent’s listing from the MLS feed, and it would not tell you who the listing agent was,” he said. “If you wanted to call on that property, you’d call one of their premier agents. And a premier agent is someone who’s basically paying Zillow money to advertise themselves to get these leads.”
That has changed some. Zillow has started showing listing agents’ contact information, according to Davis.
DelPrete elaborated on Zillow’s approach. “Zillow has two lead-gen monetization strategies inside Premier Agent,” he said. “There’s market-based pricing, where you pay up front and then you get leads, and then the other is Flex. In Flex, you pay nothing up front, but you only pay a success fee. I believe it’s about 40% of a commission if that property actually transacts.”
“The way that Zillow works is they get the listings. And the listing on the website has a contact button,” he said. “When somebody clicks that contact button, it doesn’t necessarily — in fact, it rarely — goes to the listing agent.”
According to Zillow, roughly two-thirds of the real estate audience uses Zillow somewhere along their journey — more than twice any other company in our category — and 80% of that traffic comes to Zillow organically and directly, the company said.
Homes.com: Your listing; your lead
Homes.com — owned by CoStar Group — is leaning heavily into its “Your Listing, Your Lead” policy, which prioritizes the listing agent over paid advertisers.
“When Homes launched a couple years ago, they said, ‘We’re going to offer something different,’” said DelPrete. “So, every listing up there has the listing agent’s phone, name and picture, whether they’re paying Homes.com any money or not.”
According to Davis, that philosophy isn’t just good for agents — it improves the consumer experience too.
“When I’m looking at investment properties, I use Homes.com because I want to talk directly to the listing agent,” he said. “I can email the listing agent from the platform. I can email the listing agent from the platform at home.
“The drawback for Homes is they’re just a smaller audience,” says DelPrete.
Unprompted consumer awareness of Homes.com rose to 36% in Q1 2025, compared to only 4% before February 2024, according to CoStar. The company reported that member agents are winning 61% more listings than comparable non-members.
Stance on NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy
Zillow has aligned itself closely with the National Association of Realtors’ Clear Cooperation Policy, supporting the push for listing transparency and uniform data distribution.
As a result, Zillow generally does not promote or display off-market listings unless explicitly allowed by local MLS rules.
Homes.com is taking the opposite position. CoStar CEO Andy Florance has publicly criticized Clear Cooperation as anti-competitive, arguing that it limits consumer choice and restricts how agents can market homes.
The company has positioned itself as an advocate for listing agents who want more flexibility — including the ability to market properties privately or share them with select clients before they hit the MLS.
“So Zillow is saying, ‘If an agent out there is listing a home in a private network, we’re going to ban it,’” DelPrete said. “Homes.com, is saying, ‘Hey, if you get banned on Zillow, we’re going to promote it.’” So they’re coming at it from different positions.
“Homes.com is kind of the anti Zillow. They’re trying to take business. They’re trying to have a business model and make business decisions that are the opposite of what Zillow is doing, to be able to appeal to all the agents that don’t want to or can’t advertise on Zillow.”
The consumer experience: Control v. Speed
Zillow’s model isn’t without merit — especially when it comes to consumer responsiveness.
“The counter argument is that when a consumer, a homebuyer, is on the web and they’re interested in the property, and they click a button, they want an answer immediately,” DelPrete explained. “They want to hear back from somebody now. They don’t want to hear back a day, two days, three days from now,” says DelPrete. “Some of the research that I’ve done shows that about 50% of online leads simply go unanswered.”
Zillow’s system can route those leads to more responsive agents, DelPrete noted.
“If all of the leads are going to that one listing agent, and the listing agent is busy — or is not very good at email or chooses to ignore the leads — all of those people are going to get ignored, and there’s nothing they can do about it,” he said. “Whereas in the Zillow model, Zillow will contact the lead, and the leads will get routed around to different buyers agents, until they get somebody who responds to them.”
Davis, however, remains skeptical. “If I’m trying to sell my house and a buyer sees it on Zillow, and they reach out to a Premier Agent, they’re calling someone who doesn’t know anything about my home,” he said. “You’re getting bad service as a buyer.”
Still, Zillow does offer unique features, Davis acknowledged, “Homeowners can ‘claim’ their house and edit certain property details — even if the home isn’t for sale. Homes.com and Realtor.com don’t allow that,” he said.
Zillow vs. Homes.com: Two Visions for Agent Success
Zillow and Homes.com are battling for digital real estate dominance with sharply different approaches. Zillow prioritizes speed and scale, routing leads to paying Premier Agents, often bypassing listing agents. Homes.com, by contrast, champions agent control with its “Your Listing, Your Lead” model — giving all leads to the listing agent, paid or not.
The platforms also split on Clear Cooperation: Zillow supports NAR’s rules for listing transparency, while Homes.com challenges them as anti-competitive.
In the end, it’s about agent choice — whether you want more leads or more control.
