The portal war has taken another turn.
Real estate data and analytics firm HouseCanary shook up the industry over the weekend with its Google ad pilot, which prominently displays ComeHome listings at the top of search results for real estate in several key markets, including Chicago, Denver and Austin. ComeHome is HouseCanary’s home search site and is available in 13 markets.
Buyers can scroll through listing information and schedule a home tour with a top-rated real estate agent selected by Google. The platform transfers the homebuyers’ information to the agent, with an expected response time of 15 minutes or less. The feature is only available on mobile.
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Real estate analyst Mike DelPrete was the first to report on the ads, writing in a Friday blog post that there are “a lot of potential implications” for the portal industry as the battle over exclusive listings — and strides in artificial intelligence — complicate the competitive field. DelPrete added that the situation is currently “all speculation” but signals that 2026 could be the most transformative year yet for the portal industry.
HouseCanary has said little about the partnership beyond a LinkedIn post on Sunday, which said the “controlled experiment with Google” is about “innovating, pushing into new territory, and we think this is exciting for the industry when done the right way.” The firm said it notified multiple listing services (MLSs) of the experiment and has continued to communicate with those MLSs, encouraging them to flag any issues.
“The goal is simple: improve how consumers discover listings while staying aligned with the rules and expectations of the MLS community,” the firm said.
But WAV Group Managing Partner Victor Lund criticized HouseCanary’s statement, saying the partnership likely violates MLS advertising authority and consent rules and should be sunsetted. Lund said the issue is that the partnership creates advertisements for listings — triggering rules that prevent a broker (i.e., HouseCanary) from advertising another broker’s listing without the listing broker’s prior express consent.
“They broke the law, and they violated their [internet data exchange] agreement,” he said. “IDX was never designed to allow listings to be turned into paid media inventory on global ad networks. If this practice stands, it redefines IDX from a display-based cooperation agreement into an advertising license, something neither MLSs nor brokers have agreed to.”
How IDX questions play out remains to be seen, but in the meantime, Zillow on Monday was dealing with a nearly 10 percent stock price drop as analysts mused on whether Google is officially entering the portal space.
Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Oppenheimer analysts said the partnership will likely have little effect on Zillow in the short term, with most of the impact stemming from a potential rise in paid traffic costs for the portal giant.
“[I don’t] expect a meaningful financial impact from listings on Google shifting from organic to paid,” Wells Fargo analyst Alec Brondolo said in his note, according to CNBC. “The listings product appears similar to Google Hotel Metasearch results; introduction could increase traffic cost to Zillow, but disintermediation [is] unlikely.”
“In the hotel category, Google merchandises hotel rooms in search results as a metasearch ad product for OTAs,” he added. “We would expect a similar approach in real estate, with Zillow, Homes.com, Realtor.com, etc. bidding for home listing ad units rather than Google attempting to monetize directly with an ad product sold to agents.”
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng painted a more dire picture for Zillow, saying Google’s move, which includes offering leads to buy-side agents, could encroach on the portal’s Premier Agent offering.
“While we don’t expect a direct near-term impact on Zillow’s business, given that most of Zillow’s traffic is direct (e.g., Zillow.com, StreetEasy.com, mobile apps) and Google’s new product is currently limited to select markets and mobile browsers, we view this development as a long-term risk for real estate portals like Zillow,” Ng said.
However, Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein said now is not the time to imagine Zillow’s downfall, as Google would need years to scale. “The impact would likely take years to play out and would need to be rolled out across the U.S. to meaningfully impact real estate portal traffic,” he said.
HouseCanary, Google and Zillow have not responded to Inman’s request for comment.
