• Homes for sale across Chicago’s majority-white neighborhoods are twice as likely to be listed privately as those in majority-non-white neighborhoods.
• In majority-white areas of the Chicago metro, 7.9% of homes for sale were listed privately on Oct. 21. In majority-non-white areas, that share was 3.4%.

A Zillow analysis of home listings in Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) – the Multiple Listing Service in the Chicago area – shows that homes in majority-white neighborhoods across the Chicago area are more than twice as likely to be listed privately and out of public view as homes in neighborhoods with larger shares of non-white residents. The gap we measure remains significant after accounting for home price, type, location and broker activity. The findings highlight how private listing systems can unintentionally reinforce racial segregation and restrict access to housing opportunities. As some brokerages expand private listings nationwide, similar systems could amplify inequities in other markets.

To study the distribution of private listings across market segments, we examined more than 40,000 residential listings active on Oct. 21, 2025, using data from MRED as distributed by MLS GRID. This set of listings offered a large sample size of a mature private listing network, across a wide range of home types, price points and neighborhood characteristics. Of homes listed for sale in majority-white neighborhoods, 7.9% were listed privately. In majority-non-white areas, that share was 3.4%. Among homes in the upper price tiers (65th percentile and above), the difference persisted, with private listings rates of 8.9% and 5.1%, for majority-white and majority-non-white neighborhoods, respectively. Tellingly, the private listing rate in majority-white areas overall was still 2.8 percentage points (75%) higher than among high-price homes in majority-non-white areas. This suggests that racial composition, not price, is the more salient influence.

More factors influence the odds of listing privately, beyond neighborhood racial composition and price point. We used regression analysis on a range of other features to make sure that the seeming effect of race was not instead explained by these other factors. In a logistic regression, we estimated how the odds of listing privately varied depending on:

• price level (log Zestimate)
• home size (living area)
• home type (single-family/condo)
• neighborhood racial majority (by share of household heads in block group)
• urbanicity (urban/suburban/rural ZIP code)
• brokerage size (log listing count)
• brokerage share of ZIP code listings

This model estimated 2.2 times higher odds of privately listing for a home in a majority-white neighborhood, versus in a majority-non-white neighborhood. 

This result was significant at the 99% level using heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors. The result was similar across various model specifications that used discrete price bins, different race groups and thresholds, homeownership rates, and other transformations.

How Private Listings Affect the Market

The MLS system was designed to create an open marketplace where every buyer can access every listing and every seller can reach the full pool of potential buyers. Private listing networks allow certain homes to be marketed only to select agents and clients rather than being published broadly on consumer-facing platforms. While marketed as “exclusive,” these systems can reduce transparency and restrict access for both buyers and sellers.

Limiting which buyers can see which homes constrains housing choice and can reinforce existing patterns of segregation, particularly in historically divided markets such as Chicago. A study by a University of North Carolina professor described how private listings reinforce racial segregation, even without explicit or intentional bias.

Earlier Zillow research has found that sellers who transact off the MLS typically earn 1.5% less than those who list publicly — a nationwide loss of more than $1 billion over the past two years. The same research found that sellers in communities of color lose nearly three times more on average than those in majority-white areas when homes are sold privately.

Methodology

Using data from MRED as distributed by MLS GRID, over 40,000 MLS-listed residential listings active on Oct. 21, 2025 were included in the analysis. Each home was joined with geographic area characteristics; Urbanicity was assigned at the ZIP-code level, area racial composition and homeownership rate were assigned at the block-group level, using 2019–2023 American Community Survey 5-year estimates of housing unit counts by race of householder. Each property was assigned to a price tier, based on listed price and Zestimate, using metro-level home value distributions defined by Zestimates.

Two analyses were conducted to describe the distribution of private listings among MRED residential listings. First, private listing rates were compared across various market subsets (home type, home size, price tier, area racial composition, area homeownership rate, urbanicity, and brokerage footprint), as well as intersections of these subsets where adequate sample sizes were maintained. Second, a series of regressions was run to evaluate the strength of these relationships while accounting for the multiple intersecting factors. Regressions employed both logistic and linear probability models under multiple specifications to identify the sources of variation. Results with respect to the effect of race were significant and broadly consistent across model specifications and in comparison to subset-level summary statistics.