The Zillow v Matterport Platform War
RELEASED: NOVEMBER 2025
On October 20, 2025, Zillow banned all Matterport Tours from its property listings. Here's a memo to our clients about what it means and what we're doing about it as an independent media producer.
What’s Changed
October 20, 2025, Zillow banned Matterport 3D virtual tours from appearing on property listings. This means any previously embedded Matterport experiences—those immersive walk-throughs many agents have used for years—no longer display on Zillow’s property pages.
Why It Matters
For years, Matterport has helped agents and sellers showcase properties in a the most professional, immersive way —especially valuable for rural, luxury, or unique properties where in-person showings are limited. With Zillow’s new restriction:
Listings may appear less visually engaging to buyers browsing on Zillow.
Sellers who paid for premium Matterport tours may notice the loss of visibility.
Zillow gains tighter control of listing content and consumer engagement within its own platform.
Immediate Impact on Realtors
1. Reduced Listing Differentiation
For agents who rely on Matterport to elevate presentation—especially for luxury, rural, or unique properties—the loss of Matterport visibility on Zillow means fewer visual storytelling tools in front of buyers. Listings that once stood out with immersive walk-throughs may now look visually “flatter.”
2. Impact on Seller Expectations
Sellers who’ve paid for professional 3D tours (often at a premium) may question why their investment no longer appears on Zillow. Agents will need a clear, confident way to explain the platform’s decision and highlight how they’ll still market those assets elsewhere.
3. Possible Lead Retention Strategy by Zillow
Zillow’s motive is likely to keep consumer engagement and lead capture within its own environment—using its proprietary 3D Home product to control data flow and analytics. Realtors lose some autonomy and branding visibility in this process.
Strategic Response for Realtors
1. Continue Using Matterport—But Host It Strategically
Embed Matterport links on your brokerage website, MLS listing, social media, and direct marketing (email, QR codes, postcards, text campaigns).
Use it as a value-add for private showings or in your listing presentations—position it as a premium marketing feature, not just a Zillow enhancement.
2. Adopt Zillow 3D Home When Beneficial
For listings where Zillow exposure is critical (entry-level, suburban homes, urban condos), it may make sense to duplicate efforts with Zillow’s own 3D tool.
Some MLSs even auto-sync Zillow 3D Home tours, helping maintain visual engagement for those users.
3. Differentiate Elsewhere
Focus on narrative marketing, high-end photography, and branded video to communicate property atmosphere.
Use platforms Zillow doesn’t control—like Realtor.com, Redfin, Land.com, UnitedCountry.com, YouTube, and Facebook ads—to deliver your Matterport experiences directly to qualified audiences.
Long-Term Professional Implications
1. Platform Dependency
This change underscores a growing risk: over-reliance on third-party platforms (Zillow, Redfin, etc.) that can alter your marketing reach overnight. → Agents should ensure that their own websites and branded media remain the primary digital “home base” for listings.
2. Shift Toward Controlled Ecosystems
Zillow’s policy signals a broader trend toward walled gardens—platforms that capture user attention and monetize agent participation through paid tools and proprietary formats.
3. Professional Branding Opportunity
Agents who communicate the why behind this change—showing clients they stay informed and agile—can strengthen trust. → Example script:
“Zillow recently restricted third-party virtual tours like Matterport to promote their own internal system. We’ll still provide you with a Matterport tour on every other platform and directly to buyers—it just won’t appear inside Zillow’s listing viewer.”
Summary Takeaway
Matterport isn’t going away—Zillow just doesn’t want to host it.
Smart Realtors will adapt by:
– Keeping Matterport in their private and brokerage-level marketing mix.
– Leveraging Zillow’s tools where necessary for visibility.
– Focusing long-term on controlling their own content and client experience outside of Zillow’s constraints.
How We’re Responding
As media producers, we need to support your multi-platform delivery of best-in-class marketing.
Matterport Tours Stay in Our Toolbox
We will continue to produce Matterport 3D tours and make them accessible everywhere else—your own website, MLS, Homes.com, Realtor.com, Land.com, and direct marketing campaigns.
Add Zillow 3D Home When It Adds Value
Zillow’s move affects more property managers than realtors. While we have produced many Zillow 3D Home tours for rental listings, we sometimes produce them for real property for a nominal fee to maintain maximum exposure on that platform. We can produce a Home3D tour on our account or transfer it from ours to yours.
Our own LandVision360 tour platform is designed for large acreage, estates and ranches and are hosted on the 3D Vista cloud platform. Similar to Cloud Pano but richer, we can link these tours anywhere.
Our listings continue to benefit from high-resolution photography, detailed property descriptions, branded video, and digital syndication far beyond Zillow’s limits.
We’ll proactively explain this change to clients so expectations are clear and confidence in our marketing plan remains strong.
Talking Points for Sellers
“Zillow has recently decided to stop displaying Matterport tours on its listings. Your 3D tour is still a major marketing asset—we’ll continue featuring it on every other major platform and in our own marketing channels. This ensures buyers still get a full virtual walk-through experience, even if Zillow no longer shows it directly.”
The Bigger Picture
This change is a reminder that third-party content platforms control their environments—and that’s why it’s so important to invest in professional marketing that isn’t dependent on any single website. Local independent photographers and videographers are more important than ever to realtors.
Realtors can rely on platforms like homes.com and realtor.com that have close relationships with the industry, but syndicating content in independent portals can be tricky.
We recommend that before you order a 3D tour or photography, you should think carefully about your marketing strategy and how it is best executed.
If it is critical for you to position your property in Zillow Showcase, order it from Zillow and refer us to produce the highest quality 3D imagery Zillow supports using our Ricoh Theta Z1 technology.
If you want the freedom to place your tour on multiple sites, we recommend either a Matterport 3D Virtual tour or our LandVision360 tour, which can be linked anywhere.
None of us needs this confusion of platforms and technology to distract from the core mission of producing the best marketing for our clients, but together we can find our way through it until clarity and common sense prevail.
Our approach ensures your property remains well-represented everywhere buyers are searching.
Feel free to call if you have questions or wish to discuss these options.
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October 20, 2025, Zillow banned Matterport 3D virtual tours from appearing on property listings. This means any previously embedded Matterport experiences—those immersive walk-throughs many agents have used for years—no longer display on Zillow’s property pages.