Zillow.com announced that it is offering some new features to its website that draws in the professional real estate agent and lender to interface more directly with the consumer.
READ: Zillow.com New Features: "Ask Questions, Share Answers"
Zillow started out as a consumer portal for real estate information centered on its highly controversial Zestimate. The Zestimate is an automated valuation model which attempts to give a consumer property value information based on historical data from county tax records. This tool was highly criticized by the real estate community as irresponsible and inaccurate. There was a growing fear that Zillow was trying to disintermediate by eliminating or reducing the role of the licensed real estate agent. Zillow's founders had effectively done that to the travel agencies through Expedia.com. Consumers were given an opportunity to "list" their home for sale on the Zillow site without the aid of a real estate agent.
In the fall of 2006, Zillow solicited listings from the real estate brokerage community with the promise of free advertising to them. Zillow allowed agents to upload the listing information to the site. While it started off slowly, Zillow has some 100,000 national property listings in a short six months. I criticized this strategy heavily with a warning to Realtors that Zillow was trying to "steal" their content with the ultimate intention of re-selling that data back to the Realtor as a lead aggregator. My article Smoking Is Cool attracted the comments from David Gibbons, Zillow's Director of Customer Service. Mr. Gibbons proclaimed that real estate brokerage and lead aggregation was not the intent but an advertising platform was. I followed up this thought with a post called Here Come the Zmokers, Again where I further criticized this strategy and asked Realtors to adopt a cautious approach.
READ: A Realtor's Guide to "Farming" Zillow.com
Zillow announced three new features today:
CLICK AND SEE: Actual screen shots of the new features
1- Any user will be able to post a listing for sale of any property through the comments section of each property. That feature will not be limited to real estate agents or homeowners. Registered users at Zillow.com will effectively be able to "put a property in play" through this feature. Initial criticism would be that they open the practice of real estate brokerage to anybody, regardless of licensing. A closer inspection of the feature shows that Zillow will institute a "ratings system" of users, similar to Amazon.com that will reflect the credibility of the user. Contracted real estate agents will "trump" the stray commenter through bolded type and order of comments and the homeowner can subsequently "trump" the real estate agent in the "credibility" ratings of registered users.
2- Any user will further be given an opportunity to ask or answer specific questions about a property. That commentary will be stored for historical data about the subject property.
3- A revenue offering is announced through the use of "EZ Ads". The EZ Ads will be a hybrid of a sponsored link and an avatar button and will be sold for $10 per 1000 impressions. The EZ Ads impressions can be spread over a specific time period, in a specific zip code, ranging from 3 days to 3 months. The shorter the time period, the more frequent the ad impressions.
READ: How Mortgage Originators Might Use Zillow.com
Zillow answers questions as to their motive and goals with this recent announcement. The company has always claimed that it is a media company and had no designs on becoming a national real estate brokerage. It has continually stated that the Zestimate is "starting point" and never affirmed its accuracy. This announcement shows that the company intends to act in accordance with its earlier stated objectives and not as the "boogeyman under the bed" that I, and many others, believed it might be.
More comprehensive reporting and analysis can be found here:
BloodhoundBlog will have extensive coverage of tonight's announcement from Zillow.com:
A broad overview of the new functionality and its implications, by Greg Swann
Zillow.com's press release announcing the new software release:
A podcast with Director of Community Relations David Gibbons
Hey Brian,
Got it and thanks. Fins up!
Lookin' forward to it, Brian. Thanks for the heads up.
Jeff
I eagerly await to see whos jumping into the ring!
Competition brings out better products and services. The more the merrier is better and better.
9:00 p.m. PST???
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
GREAT! Good material for Carnac next month. Although what good was he. He didn't predict this.
Brian,
This better be good!
9PM tonight, there is a new "Law and Order" a new "House," and a new "The Unit," not to mention "Dancing With the Stars!"
Our local PBS is carrying a boat race "Racing to Bermuda!" I don't have much use for "blow Boats" but a boat is a boat, and blow boats are better than no boat, .and there are suppose to be 8 of them!
Then there is the learning curve some of us have yet to master posting to AR. I've always wondered if you keep an IT person to do your posting after you write the articles.
See you in about 3 hours.
Bill
9:00 PST...... can I catch the rerun?
hey Jason.....competition? :^)
Brian.... just give them my link now...... lol As so many others, I await your announcement. What AR members will lurk on over? Post their blogs over there? hhhhmmm interesting....
15 minutes to go this better be worth it. I'm too tired to care, really.
kk
P.s. will they be awarding shoes instead of stupid useless points?
I'm glad I checked the listing!
The Boat race looks like the best thing tonight.
Bill
Boy, this was almost as exciting as "Never Ending Story: Part 15" when it went straight to DVD!
Just kidding, of course. We'll see how things develop. At least they're doing SOMETHING!
Thanks, brian. Still plowing through the details. Will be interesting to see what develops and how it is perceived. So I can ask questions about my neighbor's house and someone else can answer? And it gets to be part of the online profile on that house? Hmmm
Jeff
You understand it, Jeff:
A Realtor's Guide to "Farming" Zillow.com
Well Im sticking to active rain no matter what. Nice blog bud
I wanted to ask you if you would like to join my group and place your blogs there.
its: http://activerain.com/groups/KentuckyProfessionals
Thanks so much
Ben
Good comments, Stefan. I would agree that AR is a different animal. Localism is also a different animal than Zillow but of the same species as it.
Zillow is absolutely going to be a networking community with the Q&A feature. A networking community about real estate on a micro level (zip codes). I think you get what I'm talking about here, Stefan
Brian,
Thanks for the post and the heads up. I have not visited the Zillow web site. However, I would agree if they are trying to ratchet up the site offerings, competition only makes for a better product.
Brian,I don't see Zillow as a competitor at all for Active Rain or for Realtors. Recently, for the heck of it, I checked them out on an address that I will have an appointment for on Monday and they are so far off it is ridiculous. The sad part is if the consumer actually believes what zillow comes up with...and runs with it.
Although there are those that say competition is healthy...my thoughts are that Real Estate should be left up to the professionals who are trained, licensed and actually view a house that they are evaluating.
Oh, Gena. I agree. Active Rain should not be concerned about Zillow; Localism is a another matter.
Zillow Zestimates are a toy; they refer to then as a starting point. So now, consumers don't think the Zestimate as the be all and end all, but they start there anyway.
Zillow's a magazine; a place for advertising and promotion. It is quite useful for the real estate professional looking to promote his/her business.
Brian,I so hope you are wrong. I have such great hope that Localism will take off and run. I would hate to see Zillow how do Localism in the end. Why are you such a fan of Zillow? There must be something about it that you have studied and determined is a real asset. Perhaps, you already shared that...and I missed it. Can you go over it and explain your backing of them? I have read A Realtor's Guide to "Farming" Zillow.com but is there anything else I am missing?
Good questions, Gena.
1- Eyeballs. Eyeballs. Eyeballs. Zillow attracts eyeballs and attracts the right kind of eyeballs (people looking to buy, sell, or refinance homes). The Zestimate has people coming back monthly to see if their price went up or down. I know the Zestimate is a toy but consumers love it. I want to be the guy who explains why the Zestimate is a starting point, not my competition.
2- Zillow invites consumers to ask specific questions on properties an invites people to become neighborhood experts. The opportunity for a pioneering Realtor or originator to set themself up as the neighborhood expert is astounding. I want to be the expert in Del Mar, CA; not my competition.
3- is Localism doomed? No but I've had 6 conversations with consumers in the past 6 days on Zillow; that's twice as many as I've had from localism in 6 months
I'm not backing Zillow; I'm backing you, the real estate professional. Zillow has transmogrified into this 2.0 community and noone knows about it.
Brian, thank you. You have done a spectacular job of keeping us informed. Otherwise, I'd be crying, "Help. I've fallen into the 2.0s and I can't keep up."
Now, uh, "transmorgrified"? Dammit. Where'd I put that dictionary...
What worries me is Zillow's 2.0 community morphing into a cybercommunity of people who are unaware that the information they are spreading about home values is false and skewed based on inaccurate reports and such. I'd much rather be part of something which is legit and backed by realtors who won't account on another network's info but instead on local reports. Localism is going to have to break through but it looks like that won't happen untill people other than realtors can put their 2 cents in to get activity on there.