A Real Estate Discussion Blog

Yes, Zillow is mostly known for Zestimates, but in the three and a half years since we launched, we have evolved into so much more. Here are 26 highlights -- from A to Z -- including some training resources and videos.

A – Advice. Market your expertise in our real estate forum where consumers and professionals connect. Receive e-mail alerts when questions are asked in your area. Watch this video about Zillow Advice.

B – Badges. People who are the most helpful in the Zillow Community are rewarded with better placement throughout the site and are given Zillow All-Star and Zillow Local Expert badges. These can also be added to your blog or Web site.

C – Comps. Learn how to find comps on Zillow by watching this video.

D – Duplicate listing data. When we receive listing data from multiple sources, whose information do we use? Learn how Zillow uses trumping order when receiving a listing from multiple sources.

E – E-mail updates from Zillow. We send all kinds of e-mails that can benefit you, including corporate updates, saved listing searches, updates about a home that may not even be on the market, and interest rate alerts. Learn more how to customize the information you recieve from Zillow and sign up for free Zillow e-mail today.

F – Free ways to market yourself on Zillow (video).

G – Get instant and anonymous loan quotes in our Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. Great place to check current rates and help your clients get started in shopping for financing. Learn how Zillow Mortgage Marketplace works.

H – Homeowners can claim and edit their homes on Zillow. See how you can claim your home and edit your home's facts on Zillow. (More than a million people have done it!)

I – iPhone. Over 650,000 downloads in the first 3 months have made this the No. 1 mobile real estate application. If your listings are on Zillow, you are mobile too! Watch a quick video about Zillow's iPhone App and download this wildly popular app.

J – Just for fun, Dueling Digs! Get home remodeling and decorating ideas or vote on your favorite home designs. Warning, this can be addictive!

K – Kool widgets. Tons of fun widgets you can download for free to get interesting real estate content for your website or blog. Select from this list of Zillow widgets and watch this video why you should add Zillow content to your site (remember: content is king).

L – Listings. Post yours -- for free! Find out how to add your listings on Zillow.

M – Make Me Move. This is an interesting group of homeowners who haven’t decided to go actively on the market yet, but have assigned a value of what it would take to make them move. Learn how to approach someone with a Make Me Move house (video).

N – New! Local Pages. We compiled all the data from the site onto these pages and localized it. Learn about the overhaul to our Real Estate Market Reports. Here is a great example of how to implement Zillow data on a local level.

O – Overview of Zillow. Yes, you're reading the overview, but here is a video overview of Zillow.

P – Professional Directory. Add yourself to the Zillow Professional Directory -- for free. Just create a profile and click a box in the setup to be included.

Q – Quotes. Find out what type of interest rates are being quoted right now in the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace.

R – Reports on Housing Trends. Spot housing trends from the customizable, local housing data that is carved out of the 90 million homes we have online. Better yet, just go to your Local Pages on Zillow.

S – Showcase Ads. Want your home or brand to appear every time someone searches in a certain ZIP code? If so, Showcase Ads are for you. Learn about Showcase Ads and how much your ZIP code costs.

T – Three, free ways to market yourself on Zillow. (video)

U – Update your free profile on Zillow. It is important for the information to be complete as it can affect your response from Zillow users and search engines like Google. Watch this video to learn how to Create a great Zillow profile.

V – Videos! Learn more about the Zillow folks you see here regularly on ActiveRain, including Sara Bonert, Spencer Rascoff and David Gibbons. Add a video of yourself on your Zillow profile. It can be of yourself, or a listing. Change them out!

W – Why should a broker send a listing feed to Zillow? (video)

X – X marks the spot. But why is that spot wrong on the map? Learn how to edit a home’s location on Zillow.

Y – YOU! Learn how to become a Zillow All-Star or Local Expert and show up higher in Zillow Directory search results.

Z – Zestimates. What else would we end with, but a video on how the Zestimates work and how to best describe them to your clients.

Thanks for making it all the way to Z! If there's anything you need help with, don't be afraid to ask.

Signed,

Sara with an S!

Yes, Zillow is mostly known for Zestimates, but in the three and a half years since we launched, we have evolved into so much more. Here are 26 highlights -- from A to Z -- including some training resources and videos.

A – Advice.  Market your expertise in our real estate forum where consumers and professionals connect. Receive e-mail alerts when questions are asked in your area. Watch this video about Zillow Advice.

B – Badges. People who are the most helpful in the Zillow Community are rewarded with better placement throughout the site and are given Zillow All-Star and Zillow Local Expert badges.  These can also be added to your blog or Web site.

C – Comps.  Learn how to find comps on Zillow by watching this video.

D – Duplicate listing data. When we receive listing data from multiple sources, whose information do we use? Learn how Zillow uses trumping order when receiving a listing from multiple sources.

E – E-mail updates from Zillow. We send all kinds of e-mails that can benefit you, including corporate updates, saved listing searches, updates about a home that may not even be on the market, and interest rate alerts.  Learn more how to customize the information you recieve from Zillow and sign up for free Zillow e-mail today.

F – Free ways to market yourself on Zillow (video).

G – Get instant and anonymous loan quotes in our Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. Great place to check current rates and help your clients get started in shopping for financing. Learn how Zillow Mortgage Marketplace works.

H – Homeowners can claim and edit their homes on Zillow. See how you can claim your home and edit your home's facts on Zillow. (More than a million people have done it!)

I – iPhone. Over 650,000 downloads in the first 3 months have made this the No. 1 mobile real estate application. If your listings are on Zillow, you are mobile too!  Watch a quick video about  Zillow's iPhone App and download this wildly popular app.

J – Just for fun, Dueling Digs! Get home remodeling and decorating ideas or vote on your favorite home designs.  Warning, this can be addictive!

K – Kool widgets. Tons of fun widgets you can download for free to get interesting real estate content for your website or blog. Select from this list of Zillow widgets and watch this video why you should add Zillow content to your site (remember: content is king).

L – Listings. Post yours -- for free! Find out how to add your listings on Zillow.

M – Make Me Move. This is an interesting group of homeowners who haven’t decided to go actively on the market yet, but have assigned a value of what it would take to make them move. Learn how to approach someone with a Make Me Move house (video).

N – New! Local Pages.  We compiled all the data from the site onto these pages and localized it.  Learn about the overhaul to our Real Estate Market Reports. Here is a great example of how to implement Zillow data on a local level.

O – Overview of Zillow. Yes, you're reading the overview, but here is a video overview of Zillow.

P – Professional Directory. Add yourself to the Zillow Professional Directory -- for free.  Just create a profile and click a box in the setup to be included.

Q – Quotes. Find out what type of interest rates are being quoted right now in the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace.

R – Reports on Housing Trends.  Spot housing trends from the customizable, local housing data that is carved out of the 90 million homes we have online. Better yet, just go to your Local Pages on Zillow.

S – Showcase Ads. Want your home or brand to appear every time someone searches in a certain ZIP code? If so, Showcase Ads are for you.  Learn about Showcase Ads and how much your ZIP code costs.

T – Three, free ways to market yourself on Zillow. (video)

U – Update your free profile on Zillow. It is important for the information to be complete as it can affect your response from Zillow users and search engines like Google. Watch this video to learn how to Create a great Zillow profile.

V – Videos! Learn more about the Zillow folks you see here regularly on ActiveRain, including Sara Bonert, Spencer Rascoff and David Gibbons.  Add a video of yourself on your Zillow profile. It can be of yourself, or a listing. Change them out!

W – Why should a broker send a listing feed to Zillow? (video) 

X – X marks the spot. But why is that spot wrong on the map? Learn how to edit a home’s location on Zillow.

Y – YOU! Learn how to become a Zillow All-Star or Local Expert and show up higher in Zillow Directory search results.

Z – Zestimates. What else would we end with, but a video on how the Zestimates work and how to best describe them to your clients.

Thanks for making it all the way to Z! If there's anything you need help with, don't be afraid to ask.

Signed,

Sara with an S!

Right now ActiveRain has a great contest going on where you can get 1000 points just by writing hyper local content.  So that then begs the question, "Great, but what should I write about? I sure want those darn points!"

Coincidentally, Zillow just launched our Local Pages which has all kinds of local data that can be chopped up and served in many different ways - perfect to use in your local blog posts and score some bonus points!

First, click on the new Local Info tab.

 Just going into the Overview tab of the local pages, you can see a wealth of info.  For example, in my Chicago neighborhood of Near North, I can see:

- Zillow Home Value Index (remember this is an index of all homes, not just the one that are for sale or are currently on the market) is $344,000, representing a 1-Year Change of a positive 7.5%. 

- 98.3% of the type of homes in Near North are condos, verses only 1% are single family homes.

- 43.4% are single verses 40.8% are married. (important to know if you are moving to a new neighborhood in search of a future spouse) 

And from there I can see photos of the area that people have posted (this could be another blog post in itself on how to use your community photos for marketing purposes) and any questions people may have asked in the Zillow Advice in the Near North neighborhood.

If you want more information about home values and prices, click into the appropriate area from the side bar.  Here is where you can really sort and chop up the data into interesting talking points. 

You can select up to four neighborhoods to compare side by side, and you can alter the data to appear for one, five or ten years.

By clicking on these various filters, you should be able to come up with a number of great local posts.   

 Good luck to all with the contest.  What a great way to pick up some extra  points, get some great information about your neighborhood out to the public, and score some SEO juice.

Zillow is all about data, and we recently commissioned Harris Interactive® to do a study about buyer sentiments.  In the study a buyer equaled someone who plans to purchase a home in the next two years.  Then from there, we asked them a series of questions about their intent to buy.

It is best to link over and read the whole post here, as it has much more complete information and visually appealing charts and graphs:

Today's Home Buyers: Who You Are, What You Want, Why You Buy

In case you don't link, here are some very top level findings:

• A significant portion of potential buyers (41%) are first-time home buyers or buying to invest.
• When asked why they wanted to purchase a new home, "I want/need a bigger home" was the most frequently-cited reason, chosen by 55%.
• 30% plan to own the next home they purchase for five or fewer years. 36% plan to stay in their homes 16 years or more.   
• 17% of buyers are planning for ZERO down payment on a mortgage.

The full methodology of this survey is available from Zillow - just email us at press@zillow.com.

Last Fall the Department of Justice implemented a settlement with the National Association of Realtors giving Sellers the right to opt out of their having an Automated Valuation Model (AVM) or user generated comments displayed on their home's listing on Virtual Office Websites (VOWs).  There was a lot of speculation about this settlement when it was announced, and people especially wondered what this would mean for Zillow, a site known for its Zestimate (AVM).

Now that some time has passed, the answer is, not much.  Why?  Because Zillow isn't a VOW.  In case you aren't familiar with a VOW, it is a real estate agent or broker website where someone must give contact information, get a password, and then can do searches of all available MLS listings.  [

Every listing on Zillow is there because the agent, broker, mls or home owner has intentionally given us the information to display on Zillow.  Sometimes the listing information comes directly to us, through a broker feed for example.  And sometimes it comes to us via a third party syndicator like Postlets, Point2, or The Real Estate Book.  The biggest third party provider of listing information for us is ListHub, as they handle syndication for many MLSs across the country.  We always show the source of the listing information near the bottom of the page.

Under the DOJ settlement, the seller has to affirmatively request not to have AVMs or user comments on VOW sites showing the listing.  Recently some MLSs in ListHub's system have been applying the DOJ ruling beyond just VOW sites, to real estate marketing sites as well.  This means when an agent selects "no" to having a client's home appear on a VOW site that has AVMs, the agent is also saying no to marketing exposure on non-VOW sites.  I listed the MLSs that are now doing this below. 

As I talk to real estate professionals about this decision, a common misconception I hear is that they think when this option is exercised, the website (such as Zillow) will simply remove the valuation or user comments functionality from the site, but the listing itself will still be there.  This is not the case.  When you say ‘no' to this option, your listing is simply not showing up on these sites at all.  So by forgoing this, you are opting not to get exposure on one of the most visited trafficked consumer websites, Zillow, plus a handful of others such as Yahoo! Real Estate and Trulia. 

Obviously we want the listings on Zillow, but outside of this, I worry the decision to do this could come back to haunt the agent, if not properly explained upfront.  I worry that the agent asks "do you want an AVM on your listing?" and let's say the Seller says "No".  The agent, as usual, then goes on to describe all the ways they are going to market their home online.  The Seller then goes to check all the sites the agent promised and doesn't find their listing on Zillow.  Instead the seller just sees the public record facts and the Zestimate for their home, but no listing information, no extra photos, no sales price, and no agent contact information. You know what the next call will be. 

When I talk to MLSs about this, they say they are just enforcing the DOJ settlement.  But the settlement applies to VOWs, not sites where the agent, broker and seller have sent their listing information.  I feel it is wrong for these MLSs to extend the settlement on to non VOW sites.  This practice misinterprets NAR's VOW policy, and reduces the amount of marketing exposure a seller is receiving online. 

I hope this helps clear up the settlement and how Zillow is involved with it.  If your MLS is one of the ones listed before, it is important for you to know what you are opting in and out of.  Below are some resources if you would like to familiarize yourself more with the rulings.  Or please feel free to contact me directly if you would like to discuss further. 

• Arkansas Regional MLS
• Brunswick County MLS
• Coastal Carolina Association of Realtors®
• Central Virginia Regional MLS
• Metropolitan Regional Information Systems
• Northern Nevada Regional MLS
• North Texas Real Estate Information Services
• Outer Banks Association of Realtors®
• Realtor Association of Northwest Illinois
• Sandicor
• SOCAL MLS
• Triangle MLS

Resources:

VOW policy 

Final Judgment, Exhibit A, Section II.5.c 

" The seller also has a right to request that a VOW's comments, blogs or automated market value estimate about its listing be disabled or discontinued (although the VOW can state that those features have been disabled) "at the request of the seller."   http://www.car.org/legal/mls/summary-status-doj-nar-vow/

Definitions of VOW and IDX websites

I often say that social media can be overwhelming if you don't have a plan.  However, sometimes without specifics, this might not make sense.  So instead of blogging about the theory of planning, I am just going to lay out my personal plan.  This is just what works for me, I am sure others have very different strategies and I would be interested in hearing them. 

My goals:   1) Reach and educate real estate professionals about Zillow and internet advertising in general.   2) Keep in touch with my sphere of influence 3) Keep abreast of current real estate topics and 4) Keep abreast of local happening in my neighborhood. 

Target: Real Estate professionals and Locals

Twitter- This is turning into my favorite business tool because of my short reading and writing attention span.  95% of my tweets are business related and 5% personal.  I'll follow back anyone who is in the real estate industry.  I won't follow anyone that hasn't uploaded a picture or whose profile description isn't real estate related.  I use TweetDeck to sort out those who are particularly interesting to me and any direct messages or replies.  I also use TweetDeck to follow these keywords: Zillow, Wicker Park, and the combination of "anyone know" & "Chicago".  Finally use the service to follow the hash tags for any conventions that may be happening.  (One exception to this is I have a column in TweetDeck that I track Celebrity Tweets, guilty pleasure).  I have TweetDeck on constantly throughout the day and just consider it an extension of my email.  I believe the quality of the people you follow and who follows you is more important than sheer numbers.  I also use Twitter to broadcast my new blog posts. 

Facebook- I use Facebook mostly because I personally enjoy it.  If I never got business off of it, I would still use it because I enjoy knowing what people I don't regularly hear from are up to and seeing their pictures.  90% of my status updates are personal, about 10% are business or cause related.  I don't post anything I wouldn't want my mom to see (she is now a friend of mine!).  Since the "groups" function on Facebook is so easy to use, my policy is that I'll follow anyone that has uploaded a picture and some information about themselves and we have at least two mutual friends.  The "groups" function then makes sure I don't miss any of the people I really care to know about.  I have groups for: good friends, work friends, high school, college years, and family.  The main reason I'll 'friend' anyone is that I will use Facebook to broadcast new blog posts and I want to make sure I reach as far as possible.  (tip: don't auto post your blogs to facebook, go create a custom link and message).  On average, I check Facebook 5 times a day for about 5 minutes each time. 

LinkedIn- I probably could do more here, but I use the site in a very passive way, mainly as a Rolodex or resume.  I will only connect with people that I would feel confident giving a personal recommendation about.  In other words, I must actually know you.  I keep my profile as up to date and complete as possible.  I occasional will check my Inbox, but not regularly, as most of the stuff that comes thru this site isn't time sensitive.  I probably spend an hour a month on the site. 

Blogging- Blogging is my home base to get information out.  When I first started I thought- I want to reach real estate professionals, where are they hanging out online?  So having my blog hosted by Active Rain was an obvious choice.  With so many other professionals using the site, it was an automatic audience.  Writing for me doesn't come easy and it takes effort for me to post, which is why I don't post as much as I like.  My goal is twice a week.  I will also occasionally blog on the Zillow Corporate Blog, when there is something to say that affects the real estate community. I guess I average 3 hour a week here.

Commenting on Blogs- Google alerts here are priceless.  Whenever my name is mentioned in a blog post, I will leave a comment.  I also try to leave at least one comment a day within the Active Rain community.  This is an area I wish I was better at because I think commenting can be a huge play.  Without commenting on other people's blogs, authoring your own loses something I feel.  I guess I average about 2 hours a week leaving comments.

Reading Blogs- As blogs become more popular, there is so much more to read.  I have about 40 blogs to which I subscribe to their RSS feeds and new posts go straight into my Inbox in an RSS folder.  This way I don't have to constantly go to blogs to check for updates.  I can also catch up on my blog reading when I am on planes by setting these feeds up, as I can read them offline.  I will scan the featured blogs on ActiveRain daily and just do a few random searches each day.  Finally, I find myself more and more just reading blog posts that people Twitter about. Reading blogs takes up about 45 minutes of my day. 

Forums- Again, think about where the people you want to reach are hanging out online, and get there.  For me, this means Zillow Advice (obviously!).  In the Professional section of Zillow Advice, many professionals leave posts about things they need help with, so this needs monitoring if I am going to be of help.  I am also interested in what is happening locally, so I subscribe to get alerts whenever anyone leaves a post that is tagged to my neighborhood and Chicago in general.  I like to interact with these people as well.  The auto alerts are great because I can just click on an email, and give an answer that usually takes me about 2 minutes to type. 

YouTube- My goal this year was to get more into video and I am starting to creep into it.  At Zillow we have been working this year to create training videos for various parts of the site, we now have about 25 that are hosted by YouTube.  I then use all the tools mentioned here to get these out. 

Yelp - 100% personal.  I admit, I am more of a taker than a giver here.  I read reviews for just about any place I go to eat and professional service I use.  I try to do a review here about once a month, more because I feel guilty about not giving back because I use the site so much!

This post was a little long, but I hope it gives some meat around how I personally have crafted my social media plan.  There isn't a one size fits all this!  Sites that people have a lot of success with, that I don't use, for example FlickR and blip.fm and fan pages on Facebook.  Any other good tools out there? 

Well, we are now half way through 2009 and its time to stop and look at some of the milestones we've accomplished so far at Zillow.

Traffic- For the first six months of the year we averaged 8.3 million visitors to the site each month, which is an increase of 67% year over year. This group of people looked at 44% more pages in the first half of 2009 than in the first half of 2008. 

Listings- There are 35% more for-sale listings on the site in the first half of 2009 versus a year earlier, as the result of more listings feed partnerships with brokerages and Multiple Listings Services. In total, 3.6 million listings are posted on Zillow today.

Mobile- More than 535,000 people have downloaded the Zillow iPhone App since its launch in late April, more than any other real estate-related app.

Mortgage- Zillow Mortgage Marketplace continues to rock.  Consumers submitted 265,000 loan requests on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace in the first six months of 2009. Lenders responded with 3.5 million custom loan quotes during this same period.

Agent Exposure- The Zillow Directory of real estate professionals now lists nearly 200,000 real estate agents, and more than 12,000 lenders, who have created a profile and are active on the site.

Along with these miles stones have come more ways real estate professionals can take advantage of Zillow.  So help get the word out about how to best use Zillow, we are creating a video training library.  Here are some of the more popular videos and I'll continue to publish more on my blog as they become available.

• The Zestimate: A Guide For The Real Estate Professional
• How To Use Zillow Advice
• Short Introduction to Zillow
• Zillow Mortgage Marketplace
• Showcase and Featured Ads
• iPhone App
• Market Yourself On Zillow
• Post Listings On Zillow
• "Make Me Move" Homes On Zillow
• Become a Zillow "All  Star"
• Become a Zillow "Local Expert"

Thanks to all that are using the site.  Our success in attracting a large, qualified audience of home buyers, sellers and owners ultimately translates into success and new business for you.

Visit www.ZillowPros.com for more information on these and other resources on the site. 

Traffic for some of the top visited metros on Zillow:

To my pleasure, I opened my Tweet Deck this morning and saw this Tweet from @TeriLussier:

This sparked my curiosity as to what is an "awesomest zillow profile" looks like, so off i went to see Teri's profile.  I posted it below, or you can follow the link to Teri's profile.

The first thing you'll notice is that is visually appealing and full of good content.  Great, if someone goes directly to her page.  But how do people get to this page and cause such a Tweet to be written?

Notice all the rich keywords.  What you can't see is that all these links and keywords are "followed", meaning that sites like Google and Yahoo see them and index them.  This helps people find Teri when using a search engine.  The words you highlight and link matter to Google.  So linking "click here" isn't doing you any favors.  Not all profiles on all sites are followed.  But by doing a search for Theresa Lussier on Google, you can quickly see why this matters. 

So make sure when you build a profile on sites that follow links, like Zillow, you are taking that extra few minutes to fill it out completely and insert links and video as it can make a huge difference to Google and your readers.