As Zillow Preview℠ expands to Realtor.com®, agents are already seeing the impact

The first thing agents noticed wasn't the reach. It was how differently buyers behaved when they had time.

Jackie Soto, an agent at eHomes who listed one of the first homes through Zillow Preview, wasn't expecting the level of intent she saw during the Preview window.

“These weren't just passive views,“ Soto said. “You could tell buyers were already evaluating and positioning themselves early, which doesn't usually happen until a listing is active.“

That shift — from reactive to strategic — is what broad public visibility enables. Buyers who find a home in Preview can save it, contact the listing agent directly, pre-book a tour, and use the lead time to get pre-approved. Not because they have the right brokerage connection, but because the listing is simply visible to anyone searching on Zillow.

“Buyers felt like they had an early advantage, which created a sense of urgency,“ Soto said. "It shifted the dynamic from reactive to more strategic on the buyer side.“

Starting this summer, that visibility extends further: Zillow Preview listings are expanding to Realtor.com® — bringing pre-market homes to the two most-visited real estate platforms in the country, visible to any buyer searching on either site, no brokerage relationship required. It's not a move to accumulate more listings. It's an extension of the same principle: pre-market visibility is only worth something if it's genuinely public.

Sellers get real signal before day one

Pre-market time has traditionally produced limited data. You can't learn much about how the broader market is responding when the broader market can't see it.

Public visibility changes that. Zillow Preview puts listings in front of real buyers actively searching, generating views, saves and tour requests before a home officially launches on the MLS. For agents advising sellers on pricing and timing, that's a materially different tool than comparable sales alone.

Alison Borrelli, an agent at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Commonwealth Real Estate, described it directly:

“Zillow Preview adds a layer of early data — views, saves, engagement — that we typically don't see until after a listing goes live. That changes or confirms how we think about timing, positioning and strategy.“

For her listing, early engagement validated decisions already in place. “Seeing early engagement confirmed that the pricing and positioning were resonating. Data like views, saves and shares can help inform decisions in real time, rather than relying solely on post-launch activity.“

The signal is representative precisely because the audience is broad.

A marketing runway, not a quiet test

Soto framed the opportunity in terms agents and sellers will recognize. “I always give the example of how Apple builds anticipation before a launch, creating demand ahead of time. The added advantage here is we're not just building buzz — we're collecting data.“

That combination — wide public visibility plus real behavioral signal — is what distinguishes Zillow Preview from earlier conceptions of pre-market marketing. The goal isn't to test price sensitivity in a controlled environment. It's to build genuine demand across the widest possible audience before a listing goes live, so that day one is a launch, not just a start.

With Preview listings now expanding to Realtor.com®, that runway gets more impactful with a larger audience. Eighty-five percent of soon-to-be sellers say they'd be more likely to hire an agent who can pre-market their home to the broadest online audience. Agents across more than 60 brokerages are already enrolled in Zillow Preview. This is what that looks like in practice.