Zillow Preview: What KW New Orleans Agents Need to Know

MARKET INTELLIGENCE · INDUSTRY DISRUPTION

Cody Caudill and Jeffrey Doussan unpack Zillow Preview, the Compass-Anywhere merger fallout, and why an open market — not exclusivity — wins for New Orleans sellers.

CONVERSATION WITH CODY CAUDILL, TEAM LEADER & JEFFREY DOUSSAN, OPERATING PRINCIPAL · KW NEW ORLEANS · APRIL 2026

WHY IT MATTERS

The listing wars that have reshaped national real estate just landed in New Orleans. In a single week in April 2026, Keller Williams announced a founding partnership in Zillow Preview — a new product that puts coming-soon and exclusive listings on Zillow’s platform for the first time — while the Compass–Anywhere merger closed and the broader debate over exclusive listings reached a genuine inflection point.

Cody Caudill, Team Leader, and Jeffrey Doussan, Operating Principal of KW New Orleans, addressed their agent community the morning after the news broke — walking through what it means, what it doesn’t mean, and why they believe the open market remains the right call for sellers in this city.

Cody Caudill & Jeffrey Doussan

TEAM LEADER & OPERATING PRINCIPAL — KW NEW ORLEANS

Cody Caudill came up through production before stepping into the Team Leader seat — which means when he pushes back on a strategy, it’s because he’s run the math as an agent, not just as an administrator. Jeffrey Doussan has spent years watching platforms like Zillow acquire adjacent tools — transaction management, showing software, CRM — and has been vocal about what that data accumulation means for independent agents. That skepticism makes his enthusiasm for Zillow Preview more than a talking point; it’s a considered reversal. Together, they run one of the most active offices in Louisiana, and their read on the Compass-Anywhere merger — and what it means for the coming-soon period as a legitimate marketing tool — shapes how the agents in their office go to listing presentations right now.

THE STATE OF PLAY

A wave of consolidation and platform competition has been building for months. Here is what actually happened — and why the sequence matters for every agent in New Orleans.

01. Zillow Preview launches with five named founding partners: Keller Williams, RE/MAX, HomeServices of America, United Real Estate, and Side. The product displays coming-soon and exclusive listings on Zillow’s platform — inventory Zillow has not historically shown because it wasn’t being syndicated there.

02. Compass acquired Anywhere Real Estate, closing the deal after the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust review period lapsed without regulatory intervention. The combined entity carries significant debt, which Caudill and Doussan argue creates structural pressure to close more deals in-house rather than prioritizing open-market exposure for sellers.

03. Compass-Redfin partnership is a voluntary strategic arrangement — not a regulatory mandate. Compass chose to surface some of its exclusive listings on Redfin (now owned by Rocket Companies), whose primary revenue engine is mortgage origination, not listing search.

04. Compass vs. Zillow lawsuit resolved in Zillow’s favor. Compass originally filed suit against Zillow in June 2025, alleging antitrust violations. Zillow won on the preliminary injunction. Compass then voluntarily dismissed the case in March 2026 after Zillow agreed to stop blocking listings that had been publicly marketed on Compass or Redfin sites — a concession Compass framed as a win, though the underlying lawsuit was Compass’s to lose.

We actually kind of weaponized Zillow in our favor. — JEFFREY DOUSSAN, OPERATING PRINCIPAL, KW NEW ORLEANS

WHAT ZILLOW PREVIEW ACTUALLY IS

Zillow Preview is a new product — not yet live as of this conversation — expected to launch within approximately one month. It allows participating agents to display coming-soon and exclusive listings on Zillow’s platform while still operating within local MLS rules. In the New Orleans market, that means GSREIN guidelines govern how and when a listing can be shown in the pre-active period.

For KW New Orleans agents, participation is entirely optional. What changes if you do participate: KW branding appears on every listing photo, the listing agent’s contact information is displayed directly, and clicking “Contact Listing Agent” routes the inquiry straight to the agent at no referral fee. A second button — “Schedule a Home Tour” — routes to Zillow’s flex agent network, which Caudill flags as something sellers’ agents should be aware of when explaining the product to clients.

There is also a 10% referral structure attached to certain lead scenarios, but Caudill is direct about tempering expectations: with an estimated 200 million unique monthly visitors to Zillow, the odds that any given lead has not already interacted with the platform before clicking your listing are low. Don’t build a business plan around that number.

COMING SOON AS A MARKETING PERIOD, NOT A WORKAROUND

The most actionable reframe Caudill and Doussan offer is this: the coming-soon window is not a consolation prize for sellers who aren’t ready. It is a legitimate, structured marketing period — one that now has real infrastructure behind it.

The traditional best-practice sequence — list Thursday evening, debut at the weekend open house — was designed to manufacture excitement and compress decision-making. Zillow Preview gives agents a new chapter before that chapter begins. During the coming-soon period, agents can test price reaction without accumulating days on market on Zillow’s display, and can choose whether to show price history. That optionality is meaningful in a market where pricing is genuinely difficult right now.

Doussan is direct that this matters more at higher price points, and KW New Orleans is building a dedicated class — tentatively titled something like “Best Practices for Marketing Your Million-Dollar Listing” — to be released in the coming weeks with prescriptive guidance for agents on how to sequence the coming-soon period for maximum effect.

This is just as important of a marketing period as the actual go live, and at a time where homes can sit on the market a little bit longer, because we have a very balanced market. You need more things to have to announce

— JEFFREY DOUSSAN, OPERATING PRINCIPAL, KW NEW ORLEANS

THE COMPASS QUESTION — AND WHY THIS MARKET IS DIFFERENT

Compass has invested heavily in pitching the exclusive listing model in listing presentations nationally. Caudill and Doussan acknowledge the pitch lands well in certain conversations — and they want their agents to have a sharper counter-argument, not just a dismissal.

Their position is rooted in market reality: New Orleans is currently a balanced market, not the frenzied seller’s market of 2021–2022. In that environment, exclusivity doesn’t serve most sellers. The office ran exclusive listings when it made sense and has essentially none right now, because the demand conditions don’t support it. Compass, meanwhile, is spending significant marketing dollars arguing for a model that may work as an edge case but doesn’t hold up as a general practice — and in doing so, is drawing attention to a conversation that ultimately favors the open-market position.

Doussan also points to the structural incentive problem: a merged Compass-Anywhere entity with a heavy debt load has financial reasons to favor double-ended deals, regardless of whether that maximizes seller proceeds. That’s not a scandal — it’s a business model — but it’s worth naming clearly in a listing presentation.

We are about consumer choice. We are about doing the best thing that gets the highest price for your client. And normally what gets the highest price for your client is what the most number of eyeballs possible.

— JEFFREY DOUSSAN, OPERATING PRINCIPAL, KW NEW ORLEANS

A NOTE ON ZILLOW’S DATA AMBITIONS

Doussan has not historically been a Zillow enthusiast, and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. His concern has always been platform creep: Zillow has acquired dotloop (transaction management), ShowingTime(showing coordination), and Follow Up Boss (CRM) — each purchase extending Zillow’s visibility deeper into the agent-client relationship.

His read on Zillow Preview is that it doesn’t change that calculus. KW agents are not surrendering new data; they are giving Zillow listings it was going to find eventually anyway. The difference is that now the brokerage brand is attached, the lead route is direct, and the terms are known. In that framing, participating in Zillow Preview is less a concession to Zillow and more a deliberate use of the platform’s reach on the agent’s terms.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Zillow Preview hands KW New Orleans agents a concrete new tool in listing presentations — one that makes the coming-soon period a structured marketing phase rather than an informal placeholder. Caudill and Doussan are betting that an open-market approach, now amplified by Zillow’s platform reach, will outperform the exclusive-listing model Compass has been selling — especially in a balanced New Orleans market where seller exposure matters more than ever. The class is coming, the product launches soon, and the agents who understand the mechanics first will be the ones walking into listing appointments with the clearest story to tell.

About this series. KW New Orleans hosts regular conversations with the leaders shaping our city — developers, architects, investors, and operators building the New Orleans of tomorrow. These are the conversations that happen in the rooms most people don’t get invited into.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational purposes only and reflects a summary of a public conversation. It is not legal advice, public safety guidance, or a guarantee of outcomes. Laws, policies, and crime trends can change, and individual situations vary. For questions about legal matters, consult a licensed attorney. For real estate questions, consult a licensed real estate broker, and verify any neighborhood-specific concerns through appropriate official sources.

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