Google just put real estate listings back in search results. It’s live right now in seven major markets, including Miami, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Austin.
This is a major development for any real estate agent who’s been watching the listing wars play out over the last 18 months.
Google fields over 3 billion searches a day in the U.S., and having listings show up directly in those results is a different kind of visibility than what any portal has offered before.
Real estate analyst Mike DelPrete broke down what’s driving this, and eXp CEO Leo Pareja posted an Instagram reel explaining what it means for his agents.
Both are pointing at the same thing: the way listings get distributed is changing, and agents who understand what’s happening won’t be caught flat-footed when their clients start asking questions.
Byron Lazine and Nicole White discussed the news on this week’s Real Word.
Here’s what you need to know before your next listing conversation.
What’s Actually Happening Here
Google’s test is powered by HouseCanary’s ComeHome portal, the same setup from the initial test last December. This time around, HouseCanary is assumed to have more durable listing agreements in place, including direct-to-broker deals.
The listings are currently being sourced from two places:
- eXp Realty, one of the largest national brokerages in the country
- CRMLS, one of the nation’s largest MLSs, covering California
When you search in one of the launch markets, you get full property detail pages with options to request a tour and contact an agent directly.
Source: MDP’s Research Library
Earlier this year, eXp announced a syndication partnership around coming soon listings that included a non-exclusive deal across multiple portals, including HouseCanary’s ComeHome.
That non-exclusive structure is what feeds into Google. And to be clear, the listings showing up in Google search are not limited to coming soon inventory. It’s all listings.
Other brokerages went to Zillow’s Preview Listings program. eXp went wide.
Leo Pareja, CEO of eXp Realty, made that clear in his Instagram reel:
View this post on Instagram
My favorite Pareja quote from that reel:
“Our single obsession over here is how do we get every one of our listings in front of as many buyers and sellers to benefit the consumer with the least amount of friction.”
The Listings Ecosystem Is Changing
Google entering the listings space is one piece of a much larger reorganization that’s been building for the last 18 months.
Here’s where things stand right now:
- Zillow and Redfin are now offering agents leads and financial incentives in exchange for listings
- MLSs are going national, expanding their reach beyond traditional regional boundaries
- Google is in the field, with AI integration via Gemini, a logical next step
DelPrete explained it like this:
“The bottom line: Going back a few decades, real estate listings were hidden and decentralized; the portals made them visible and centralized.
“Now—with exclusive inventory, MLSs going national, Google entering the field, and the emergence of AI—we seem to be entering a world where listings are visible but starting to become decentralized or multi-homed; brokerages now have multiple distribution options.
“And when agents and brokers can multi-home their listings, distributors begin to compete on value—with power starting to flow back to whoever owns the listing.”
Your sellers are going to notice this before long. Being the agent who can explain it puts you in a different category.
