DIY versus hiring a listing removal service
Updated September 26, 2026
The job is the same either way
Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com decide what stays on their pages. You can ask through their owner tools, or you can authorize someone to ask for you. Neither path deletes the county sale record. Start with the post-sale checklist if you want the full list of pages to look at before you choose.
Side-by-side
| Comparison | Do it yourself | HideMyHome |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, aside from your time | $49.99 USD one time, or $69.99 CAD on the Canada site |
| What you do | Claim each home, file each request, and keep the screenshots | Enter the address, confirm ownership, pay once, and sign an authorization |
| Sites | One dashboard at a time | A request for major sites such as Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and Trulia |
| Billing | Nothing to cancel | Nothing to cancel. There is no subscription |
| After the request | You recheck the public pages | No monitoring plan. You can still recheck the pages |
| Who decides | Each website | Each website. Removal is not guaranteed |
When doing it yourself is enough
- You only care about one site, and the owner tool is visible. The Zillow photo guide and the Redfin guide are written for that case.
- You want to edit a wrong bed count or square footage, which is a correction, not a takedown.
- You already have a help-desk thread open and you are waiting on a reply.
DIY fails in predictable ways: the Edit Facts button is missing, Realtor.com will not unlock edits, the mobile app hides the control, or the photos drop on one site and stay on three others. That is time, not a fee.
When a one-time service fits
Hire the request when you want photos, price history, and property details submitted across the major sites, and you do not want to run each owner dashboard. Checkout on the HideMyHome homepage is address, owner details, a single payment, and a signature. The signature is the permission to contact the sites. There is no renewal and nothing to cancel later.
Read the limits the same way you would for DIY. We do not operate the MLS, we do not guarantee every photo or every price comes down, and we do not watch the listings after the request. If a page is restored later, contact us and we can talk through a new request. The Realtor.com guide explains the ownership documents those teams often ask for, which we may need from you as well.
Have HideMyHome send the requests
HideMyHome is a one-time payment of $49.99 USD, or $69.99 CAD on the Canada site. You enter the property address, confirm you are the owner, pay once, and sign an authorization. We contact major real estate sites and ask them to remove listing photos, price history, and property details. There is no subscription and no monitoring plan. Each site decides what it will change.
