A Real Estate Discussion Blog

Zillow is a media site, or a marketing platform for real estate professionals to utilize to connect with buyers, sellers, and each other.  Each month more than 5 million people come to Zillow with one common interest, real estate. 

Here are the top 10 ways that real estate agents can use Zillow:

1) Post your listings on the site, for free.  There are three ways you can do this: manually add each listing, if you have the technical capabilities you can send us a direct feed (best for 200+ listings), or work with one of our syndication partners to populate your listings to the site (free service). 

2) Create a free Profile. This is basically like creating an interactive business card online.  Not only can you display all of your contact information, but it also centralizes all of your contributions on Zillow and makes your photo appear on all of your listings.  Also, the profile gives you great search engine juice. 

If you work for a company that is already feeding listings to us, make sure to set up a profile with the same email address your company has on record for you.  This too will ensure that your photo appears your listings that they are sending us.

3) Listing presentation fodder.  Include your listing distribution plan in your presentation to home sellers.  Another benefit to the seller is not just that you are going to put their home on the site, but that you are going to handle all of the incoming phone calls and emails for them.  We created this listing presentation piece to help articulate the value of being on Zillow. 

4) Get involved in Discussions.  Zillow has a Discussions area of the site where every day buyers, sellers and other real estate professionals are asking questions and discussing various real estate topics.  Here is your opportunity to interject your voice in the conversation.  Tip: Don't go for the hard sale here.  Simply by offering helpful information and being there for the user, you can win them over to advance the relationship.  There is a free-form search box in the Discussions area where you can search for topics of particular interest, such as "wicker park" or "condos in Chicago". 

5) Home Q&A.  On Zillow anyone can ask or answer a question on any of the 80 million homes we have on the site.  On our home page, there is a link to "Answer Questions in your area".  Click on it, and you are asked what area you interested in "farming".  You will get attribution and a link back to your profile on any question you answer.  If you are the listing agent of a home, you will be emailed whenever someone leaves a question on one of your listings and you will receive special treatment in the answers area as being the person with the most authority on the home.   

6) Discover the Make Me Move database.  This is a unique database to the Zillow site which represents a group of people who aren't interested in actually going to market, yet.  However, if someone were to show up on their doorstep with a bag of money for the stated amount, they would consider selling.  This can be an alternate source of listings when helping your buyers.  But this can also be viewed as a potential list of future sellers.  Same tip applies here, where the hard sale doesn't particularly work on these folks.  However, you could begin sending them useful information in the form of drip marketing (consider snail mail, you know their address) such as recent home sales or developments of interest in their neighborhood.  Internal research shows that 91% of homeowners who posted a Make Me Move price say they would consider paying an agent commission if their home were to sell, with 64% saying they would pay between 2-3%.  45% of the Make Me Move respondents said they would use an agent on the sell side to complete the transaction.

7) Co-Brand on links.  Imagine you are going to write a blog post or an email to a client where you were going to link to Zillow.  Instead of linking to www.Zillow.com, you can link insert the link www.zillow.com/?scrnnm=[insert Zillow Screen name here] and the link will go to Zillow, but with your contact information at the top of every page.  For example, my Zillow screen name is sarab, so I would link to www.zillow.com/?scrnnm=sarab.  Click on the link to check out what it looks like online.  No special coding skills needed to get this extra exposure.

8) Free API and Widgets. The Zillow API Network can turn your website into a mini real estate portals by offering fresh and provocative real estate content to help keep people coming back to your site.  We have bundled up a lot of information found on Zillow and published the code so you can easily add it to a website, thus offering this content to your visitors, for free.  Please visit this information page about the API Network to learn more about how to do and what type of information is available.   

We also have mortgage content you can use on your site, in the form of Widgets.  These are very easy to implement, all you need to do is create an account with Zillow (see number 2 on this list), chose the widget you would like, and cut and paste the code onto to your site.

9) Market Your Open Houses.  It is free to add any open house information to your listings online.  Once the open house expires, the information will come down.  The listings with open house information will also receive special treatment in the search results, drawing additional attention to it.  Looking for even more exposure for your open house event, see number 10.

10) Use Zillow Showcase Ads, an advertising solution.  Showcase Ads are a way to get even more exposure for your listings or yourself on Zillow, thru buying advertising on the site.  Specify ZIP codes where you want your ad to appear so only potential customers looking at homes in those areas will see your ad. Write your own headline and content, include an image, phone number, e-mail address, and a link to your Web site, which you can update at any time. Cost is based on how much exposrue for your ad you would like to recieve, purchase 25, 50, 75, or even 100 percent of ad view placements in the ZIP code you want.

Each month Zillow attracts millions of buyers and sellers looking for real estate information.  These ten tips on how to use the site will help you get in front of these people and begin to build relationships that can translate into customers.  

Oh, and if you just want something fun to do or want some design ideas, check out our Dueling Digs!  Warning though, this can be addicting. 

At the Inman real estate conference last week, and in the Inman newsletter yesterdaty, there was a lot of talk on the importance of good photography and having lots of photos on each of your listings.  My reaction to all this talk is- duh. 

I would hope by now every good real estate agent knows that you need to have good photography. (For those that don't know this, watch for your pictures on one of my favorite real estate blogs, Bad MLS Photo of the Day, a hilarous blog) Most real estate websites report a linear relationship between the amount of traffic a listing recieves with the amount of pictures a listing has online.

However, I would like to add that it is important that the photos are attached to the listing the day that the listing enters the MLS.  I know there are situations where you get the listing and immediately enter information into the MLS, even though you might not get the photos done for a few days for various reasons. 

Why this is bad- There are many people who have alerts set up to ping them when something new comes on the market that matches their search criteria.  When a new listing gets entered into the system, the consumer gets emailed, they go check the home out, only to find it has no pictures and they are immediately not interested.  The consumer has better things to do than to remember to go back and check each day to see if new photos have been added. 

Obviously photos are important.  But it is also very important that the new listing launches into the marketplace 100% ready to go, including showcasing all photos, so that the home is reaching its full potential when the most people are seeing it, the day is goes live. 

Last week I attended RIS Media's CEO Exchange in Denver, CO.  This is an invite-only event, attended by some of the biggest brokers in the industry along with a handful of vendors (which is why I got to go as Zillow is an advertiser with RIS). 

I spend a bulk of my time at Realtor focused events, it was interesting to shift gears and hear from a number of these traditional brokerage CEOs. This group of people have been in the business a long time and have a wealth of knowledge and experience behind them.  They talked about how they are grappling to keep their companies relevant to not only tomorrow consumers, but also to tomorrow's real estate agents. 

I came away with pages of notes, but here are a few of the high points, in no particular order:

• As a whole, the industry has done a good job adopting new technologies, but a poor job implementing them.  When asked to give themselves a report card grade how they are using popular and emerging technologies, the leaders gave themselves a C average. 
• Your listings have to be every now.  This isn't a differentiators anymore.  This is something home sellers expect when listing their home, and home buyers expect to see a full set on listings on your site. 
• Brokers need to restructure work conditions to better accommodate and attract younger people into the business, this can also help keep physical office costs down.  The real estate agent in their 20's or early 30's thinks nothing of working from home and being mobile.  They don't require the big desk and private office within a physical office.  They view the office more of a place to go to be social.  This translates in work environments that should include comfy couches and communal work stations where a group can sit down and converse when in the office. 
• The conversation about physical office space also extended to the number of locations necessary in today's world.  Traditionally a brand would set up an office in many of the individual towns or neighborhoods (ex Coldwell Banker Lincoln Park, Coldwell Banker Bucktown, and Coldwell Banker Wicker Park- all in Chicago).  The trend is to move away from having all these hyper local offices to a single, centralized, regional office.  All internal research shows that this is more profitable way to operate and a concept that Gen X and Y consider perfectly normal and acceptable.
• All brokers strongly believe in the need to continue to invest in continued education.  I liked this idea that a top Keller William Broker shared from Gary Keller, founder of Keller Williams, where he posed the idea that if you were in a personal financial downturn, would the first thing you cut in your family be your children's education?  The answer is no, so why would companies do this?  However, there seems to be a shift in the training resources to invest in the more established and top producing agents in helping to sharpen their skill set, verses focusing on the new agent.  With less dollars available in the market in general,  the idea is to help the top producers grow to gain more market share in the shrinking market.
• Real Estate Power Teams - This is moving from a fad to a common way of operation within real estate offices.  Working with teams creates some unique issues for the managing broker to deal with, verses working with the individual agent.  However, it is important to learn how to work with this business unit as it is becoming a very popular and profitable way for a power agent to operate. 
• At the end of the day, with all the numbers, technology and trends- the business is still about personal relationships. 

Unfortunately the conference ended on a more sobering note as Dave Linger gave the closing address, founder and President of RE/MAX international.  He has been in the business for 40 years, so he has experienced many ups, downs and changes in the industry.  Dave noted that this cycle is different from any other that he has experienced, because in past recessions housing has always been the stimulus that led the country out of the downturn.  This time housing is the thing that is widening the gap.  He predicted that like all recessions, we will come out of it, but not fully until 2018.  This is due to both economic conditions and also family planning trends as their simply aren't as many Gen X and Yer's as their were Boomers to actually buy and sell homes. 

The CEOs at these major brokerages definitely have a lot on their minds today as they continue to try to do more, or at least the same, on shrinking budgets.  A silver lining is that these conditions have forced them to go deep inside their business, even line item by line item on their P&Ls, and hopefully emerge as a leaner and more effieciently run business. 

I am so excited to announce today that we have formed an advisory board of 10 influential leaders in the real estate industry.  Their role on the board will be to provide counsel on existing Zillow services, while also helping to evaluate ideas for future Zillow products and services.

When thinking about who to invite to participate, we wanted to make sure that a wide range of brokerages and offices were represented.  We wanted someone who would represent the frachised verses the independent office; the large verses the small office; and the national verse regional brand. 

This board will be invaluable in helping us plan and continue to build product and services that serve the real estate community to the fullest potential. 

Introducing the Zillow Broker Advisory Board:

Steve Baird:  Steve is the President and CEO of Baird & Warner.  Established in 1855,  Baird and Warner is the oldest residential real estate brokerage in the US and currently ranks among the nation's top 12 with an annual sales volume of approximately $5 Billion.  Under Baird's leadership, the firm has grown dramatically- currently with a sales force of approximately 1,700 sales associates, who operate from 30 strategically located offices throughout Chicago and its suburbs. 

Ken Barris: Ken is the President of Jordan Baris.  At the age of 22, Ken was the youngest CRS in the nation and later earned the CRB designation.  An industry leader, Ken with a partner, developed and licensed to Top Producer Systems, Top Presenter- an interactive multimedia listing presentation that was award best new software product of the year by NAR when it was launched.  In the media, Ken has been heard on radio and seen on CNBC and NBC National Nightly News as a real estate expert.  Frequently in the press, he has been quoted in editorial sections of USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Real Estate News, Real Estate Business, Real Estate Today and various industry newsletters.  As a speaker, Ken has addressed professionals at numerous conferences on topics such as Practical Technology, Selling on the First Day Out and Unlocking the Power of the Web for Brokers.  Established in 1952, Jordan Barris Inc. is one of the premier full-service real estate brokerages in New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area and has a team of over 200. 

Bob Blount: Bob is CEO and RE/MAX Allegiance with 35 offices, and 1150 agents in MD, VA and Washington DC.  He is a Director for NAR, MRIS, REIN MLS, and REBR.  He serves on several VAR committees and work groups and was on the NAR Gateway PAG.  He is recognized as an expert in integrated brokerage business systems.  Bob is a former RE/MAX International Broker/Owner of the Year and resides in Virginia Beach, VA.

Sherry Chris: Sherry was appointed President and CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC in October 2007.  Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate is the 5th residential brand for Realogy.  Sherry was most recently COO for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.  Overall, Sherry has more than 27 years of real estate experience, including significant senior management positions in the areas of sales and marketing and new technologies, and franchise management.  A native Canadian, she began her real estate career in Canada and held increasingly senior positions with Royal LePage for 16 years before taking on executive roles with Real Living (OH) and Prudential CA/NV/TX Realty.  She joined Realogy in 2006.  Well known within the real estate industry, Sherry is a frequent speaker at real estate and technology conferences.

Craig Cuyar: Craig is a Senior VP and CIO for the Realogy Franchise Group.  Realogy is a franchisor of 6 of the most recognized brands in the real estate industry: Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Commercial, ERA and Sotheby's International Realty.  Realogy franchises its leading brands to residential and commercial real estate brokerages throughout the US and the world.  Craig is a regular speaker on the Business Value of IT and serves on a number of advisory boards in both the technology and professional services industries.  Craig is also an Executive Board Member and President of the NJ Chapter of the Society for Information Management.

Dan Elsea: Dan is the President of brokerage services for the Real Estate One Family of Companies.  Dan has been in the real estate business for over 25 years in a number of capacities within the company from commercial and residential sales to branch and division management.  He and his brother Stuart share the leadership of the company and its affiliates.  The company is in its third generation in MI, having begun as Elsea Realty in 1929 under Staunton Elsea, Dan's grandfather.  Real Estate One brings in $2.4 Billion annually, and is the 13th largest brokerage in the nation, employing 1500 agents.

Pat Lashinsky: As the CEO and President of ZipRealty, Pat serves on the Board of Directors and is responsible for the company vision, planning, and overall strategy in addition to day to day oversight of the company's overall operations and its growth and innovation initiatives.  Pat has previously served as President, Executive Vice President of Product Strategy and Development, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, and as Vice President of Sales at ZipRealty. 

Mike Montsko: As President of the Weichert Lead Network, Mike oversees Weichert Realtor's state-of-the-art customer contact center.  Prior to his promotion, he spearheaded the huge technological initiative that created Weichert's industry-leading contact center.  The only one of its kind in the industry, the Weichert customer contact center uses sophisticated technology to deliver responsive personal service to online and 800 number customers 7 days a week.  In 2005 and 2006, Mike was listed as one of the "100 Most Influential Real Estate People" by Inman News. 

Harley Rouda, Jr: Harley is CEO of Real Living, Inc.  Harley spearheaded the creation of Real Living in February 2002 by acquiring several regional real estate firms to create an agent-centric company that would lead the industry in marketing, technology and professional development.  In 2006, REALTOR Magazine named Harley one of Real Estate's Top 25 Most Influential Thought Leaders.  Inman News also named him one of hte Most Influential People in Real Estate.  He earned the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awared in June 2002, in recognition of his industry leadership, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.  In April 2007, he was selected as the vice chair of The National Association of Realtors' Real Estate Services Advisory Board. 

Mark Woodroof: Mark is managing partner for Prudential Gary Greene, and has been active in the Residential Real Estate brokerage business for nearly 24 years.  In March 2000 Mark became a principal at Prudental Gary Greene, Realtors.  This new entity was formed with partner Marilyn Eiland by acquiring the residential assets of Gary Greene Realtors, Better Homes and Gardens and 4 Prudential affiliates, ultimately creating a market-leading force of over 11000 associates in 18 owned and 9 affliliated offices throughout the greater Houston area.  Mark and Marilyn are actively involved in the leadership and daily operations of the company.  Mark has been involved with the Houston Association of Realtors since 1991 serving as its chairman in 1999.  He has also active with both the state and national associations serving on numerous committees and is a past director of the Texas Association and current director of the National Association of Realtors as a large broker representative. 

I started my venture into blogging by reading and commenting on other blogs.  Then I got braver and actually started writing my own blog.  The next step is now for me to learn how to grow my audience through social media outlets. 

As I begin to use sites like facebook, twitter, friend feed. etc to distribute my content, it is important to know what is working.  I also find it helpful to know what keywords are getting picked up in the search engines to help drive visitors.  Knowing this can help me focus on where to spend my time and also help me understand what are the more popular topics to write about. 

I recently began using the free tool www.getclicky.com to do this.  They have upgrades you can purchase, but so far the free version seems to be meeting my needs just fine. 

It was very easy to download.  You just go to their site and register.  Then you will get some code that you cut and paste into your Active Rain blog by going to My Home, My Settings, and pasting into Blog Description. Notice the little Get Clicky icon now in my right hand bar. 

Below is a screenshot of my anaytics from yesterday.  It is a little fuzzy to read, so let me recap the some of the highlights for you.  So far this day, I had 118 people find me through a direct bookmark (or through the AR network), 12 people used searches, 3 people had me in their RSS feeder and 3 people found me by linking to me on another blog.  Interesting stuff!  You can see the importance of 1) being involved in a network and 2) writing good content so that people will subscribe and link to you. 

Wouldn't it be interesting to know what searches the 12 people used to find me?  With Get Clickly you can!

This week my zip code got changed by the USPS and I wrote about it, and thus this is how a quarter of the people found my blog from search engines.  Months ago I wrote a blog post about all the first time home buyer assistance programs that the state of IL has, and for some reason it got picked up very well by the search engines.  Months later I can see that yesterday 5 people found that article based on keywords they were using in the search engines.  The smart move would be to write additional articles on this topic, as there seems to be a heavy interest for it.

Get clicky allows you to do other things, such as see the IP address of your visitors and even see who is reading your blog right now thru their Spy feature!  But personally I am most interested in knowing how many people are visiting, where they are coming from and why they are coming. 

If you are already using some type of analytics (goggle analytics seems to be the most popular) here is a chart Get Clicky created, comparing all the features of the different services. 

How can you not click on a post with a title like that?? 

It's that time of year again...time to come have a beer on Zillow at our 3rd Beer For Blogger's event at the Inman conference next week in San Francisco. 

Here are the details:

Who's invited: If you are registered for Inman's Bloggers Connect, you are!

When: Tuesday, June 22, from 6:00-8:00pm

Where: Cafe Du Nord (same venue as RE Bar Camp)

Here are some pictures from the last Beer For Bloggers held in NYC in January. 

(Let's hope this year's location has more room than the last place we held the event in San Fran.  If you were there, you remember how crowded it was...  Bloggers need their space!) 

I wonder how many Flip phones will be at this event, each time there are more and more.  Beer and Videoing...sounds dangerous!  :) 

This is truly a good time and I hope all Blogger Connect attendees can make it. 

US News and World Report is starting a new feature called Housing Rumble on their Home Front blog.  It will be a regular feature where they throw out a subject and have two people on opposing sides debate it. 

Thier first Rumble centers around "Do you need a real estate agent to sell your home?". 

Lucky for real estate agents, one of the best real estate bloggers in the country (IMHO) is representing the Pro Agent side, Jay Thompson.  The other side is represented by Greg Healy, who is the VP of Operations at forsalebyowner.com. 

If you have some time today, I am sure Jay would appreciate your support with some good back up evidence as to the value agents bring to the table. 

Day 1 - Pro Agent by Jay   July 14th

Day 2 - No Agent by Greg  July 15th 

Day 3 - Response from Jay  July 16th

Day 4 - Response from Greg  July 17th

Make sure you visit the site to vote after the debate is over on whether or not an agent is necessary.

These new zip code changes are important to note if you have any property alerts set up by zip code.  If you don't update your search criteria, you could miss out on whole neighborhoods for which you were previously getting information. 

Starting July 1, 2008, 13,200 homes in 60622 and 60610 got new zip codes reassigned to them.  In 60610 (Old Town/Loop area), people living on West Chicago Ave and south of there will now be 60654.  And in 60622 (Wicker Park/Ukrainian Village/East Village area), those living east of Ashland Ave will now be 60642 (occasionally referred to as Noble Square). 

Postal Service officials attribute the need for new ZIP codes to the "dramatic growth in Fort Dearborn and Wicker Park," which has exhausted ZIP code combinations. 

I personally live in the affected 60622 area, which I refer to Wicker Park.  It is strange to think that I live in a new neighborhood, one block away from both Wicker Park and Bucktown.  But I can't complain about the reason for the need of the new ZIP, "explosive growth".  Which has translated into "property appreciation" for my home, so I guess I can get over the semantics. 

Regardless of the name, I LOVE my neighborhood.  It is directly in the middle of Wicker Park with its quirky, bohemian independant shops and restaurants, Bucktown which is offering higher and higher end shopping with each time I walk down Damen, and the North/Sheffield area which has all the chain stores I need (Gap, Banana Republic, Express, etc)- all within a one mile walk.  The area is also convienantly location right by the Interstate and three Els stops are also within one mile (Division and Damen Blue Line stops and the North Ave Red Line). 

So make sure you update your search criteria if you were previously searching in these areas.  Or you can forego the need to know about ZIP codes and have your agent set up a property search by street coordinates (a popular way to search in Chicago because so many different neighborhoods can be included in one ZIP).