Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—E.D. Va.: Stay of litigation ordered in state actions against Internet rental real estate listing services, (Nov 6, 2025)

By Kenneth H. Ryesky, M.B.A., J.D.

State attorneys general and rental housing Internet list services agree to pause their antitrust litigation pending resolution of federal government shutdown.

The federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia has granted a joint motion by the attorneys general of five states and two defendant online rental housing listing services to stay an antitrust lawsuit pending the ongoing government shutdown. The arguments raised by the parties in their joint motion for a stay were accepted by the court. A lawsuit filed by the FTC alleging the same operative facts had already been stayed, so the stay in the state attorneys general's lawsuit would promote judicial economy by facilitating coordination for a joint scheduling order for the two cases. The stay order makes clear that upon termination of the stay, the parties are expected to promptly "confer regarding appropriate new deadlines and provide the Court with a revised proposed scheduling order (Commonwealth Of Virginia v. Zillow Group, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01647-AJT-WBP (E.D. Va. Nov. 3, 2025)).

In the residential rental real estate industry, millions of Americans go online on the Internet to find suitable housing. There has developed a market for Internet Listing Services (ILS) to accommodate the needs of housing seekers. The ILS market is highly concentrated. The top-ranked ILS in the market is Zillow, Inc., a subsidiary of Zillow Group, Inc. (collectively, Zillow). Along with Zillow, CoStar Group, Inc. (CoStar) and the Redfin Corporation (Redfin), the top three ILS firms by revenue in 2024, had more than 85 percent of the national ILS market.

In February 2025, Zillow and Redfin entered into an agreement whereby Redfin, in exchange for an initial $100 million payment from Zillow, would cease its advertising of multifamily housing units and transfer the advertising contracts for such housing to Zillow. Thereafter, Redfin would receive guaranteed minimum licensing fees from Zillow for Zillow's use of advertising which otherwise would have been carried by Redfin.

On September 30, 2025, the FTC filed an antitrust lawsuit against Zillow and Redfin, alleging causes of action under the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and FTC Act in the Eastern District of Virginia. The next day, October 1, 2025, the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and Washington filed a mostly verbatim complaint in the same court, alleging the Sherman Act and Clayton Act counts (but not the FTC Act count, the state attorneys general having no standing to do so).

On October 1, 2025, the first day of the U.S. government's fiscal year, funding of most government operations, including the FTC, became frozen because Congress had not enacted a fiscal year budget or even passed a continuing funding resolution. On that day, the FTC filed an unopposed motion to stay the litigation during the government shutdown; that motion was granted by the court on October 6, 2025.

On October 31, 2025, Zillow, Redfin, and the five state attorneys general filed a joint motion to stay the litigation pending the government shutdown "to increase the possibility of alignment with the FTC on a motion for consolidation and, if granted, on a joint proposed scheduling order." On November 3, 2025, the joint motion was granted by the judge (who was hearing both the FTC's case and the state attorneys general's case).

The Case is No. 1:25-cv-01647-AJT-WBP.

Judge: Trenga, A.

Attorneys: Tyler Timothy Henry, Office of the Attorney General for Commonwealth of Virginia. Brendan J. Coffman (Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati) for Zillow Group, Inc.

Companies: Zillow Group, Inc.

Cases: Antitrust VirginiaNews FederalTradeCommissionNews