This just in, the Zillow family of partners grew a lot bigger today with the addition of all Realogy listings to the site.
This means if you are a Coldwell Banker, ERA, Century 21 or Sotheby's Agent, your parent company is going to upload your listings to Zillow's marketing platform of 4-5 million users for you on a daily basis. This will be a great addition to your listing presentation and a new source of free leads!
Zillow.com® Adds All Property Listings From Realogy's Residential Real Estate Brands
Parent company of CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA and Sotheby's International Realty will now distribute 700,000 property listings daily via the Zillow® Listings Feed program
SEATTLE, Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading real estate Web site Zillow.com today announced an expansion to its marketing agreement with Realogy Corporation that will result in approximately 700,000 total property listings from Realogy's brand networks to be posted to the Zillow.com Web site on a daily basis. Realogy is a leading global provider of real estate and relocation services, and includes some of the largest and most recognizable real estate franchise systems, including CENTURY 21®, Coldwell Banker®, ERA® and Sotheby's International Realty®. ERA Real Estate was the inaugural partner in the Zillow Listings Feed program, which was announced in October 2007.
"We've been working closely with Realogy for the past four months to showcase its ERA brand and drive significant exposure of its listings on Zillow and traffic to its agents and local brokers' Web sites," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president. "ERA's participation set the tone for the success of our listings feed program in such a short amount of time, and Realogy's decision to include its other brand listings is a great testament to Zillow's value as a marketing partner."
"Our ERA brand has benefited from the added exposure its listings have received on Zillow.com. The expansion of Realogy's marketing relationship with Zillow to include our other brand networks and Company-owned offices was a natural next step in our online listings distribution strategy," said Alex Perriello, president and CEO of the Realogy Franchise Group. "We look forward to having all our brands receive the same level of online exposure on Zillow.com that ERA has enjoyed in recent months."
Property listings under the Realogy brand networks, which include listings from Realogy-owned brokerages operated by its subsidiary, NRT LLC, will be dynamically uploaded to Zillow on a daily basis, providing its brokerages with additional marketing exposure for their properties while enhancing the search experience for Zillow's users. Upon viewing the listings on Zillow.com, consumers will have the option to click a link to the listing brokerage's Web site where they can locate a Realogy-affiliated agent to guide them through the home buying and selling experience.
Zillow Listings Feeds allows real estate brokerages to post for-sale listings directly to the site in a bulk feed, giving the homes a virtual for-sale sign at no cost, in front of Zillow's 4 to 5 million visitors per month. For enhanced exposure, individual agents can create a free profile page with photos, contact information and more details about the agent, linked directly from each listing. Approximately 100,000 agents have created a profile on Zillow to date, which also allows individual agents the ability to list properties for sale. For more information on Zillow Listings Feeds, visit http://www.zillowfeeds.com/.
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Jim- Most definitely it will. Your company's brand will appear on your page as well as all of the contact information for you that they send us (name, phone and email are standard).
What you can really do to get the biggest bang is go to Zillow and register for a free account, you'll see the link it the upper right hand corner. From there you can create a free profile with your photo, marketing text and a link to your website. **Important** register with the same email address as your company has on file for you.
Then we will match up your profile with the listing you company sends us and also be able to display your photo on all of your listings, as well as include a link to this profile page with more information about you.
(all this is free to you)
Sara- You said register with the same email address as your company has on file for you. Is this our email we have people contact us with and not the brokerage email right? I also have my own website and signed up with zillow to do one of the agent ads that show up when someone searches for the town you represent. I like it and hope I will see some results.
Sara, Thanks for posting this. I did not know that Cendant had spun off the real state franchise business. I've been behind on my education.
This is a definite plus for Zillow.
Bill Roberts
Bob- Thanks for the note. Things are going very well. Look for even more announcements soon!
Carol- Correct. Realogy has elected that email leads will go directly to the listing agent.
Bartley Group- I don't have an eta yet. My guess is in about a month? No, it will not be a problem if Postlets is already submitting on your behalf. We deduplicate everything. Also, we are currently writing code that will make it so that the Broker's listings always trumps a syndicator (like Postlets). This is about two months out.
Bill- Thank you for using the site!
Thanks for the Welcome.... I'm sure that it will be a beneficial partnership for everyone.
Johnnie- This will help with the listings that are included in a feed, as the feeds are updated daily. In these cases we won't have to rely on the listing agent to keep the info current.
Karl- For smaller brokers, we can take a feed from you very soon. If you have these capabilities, you can submit your info at http://www.zillowfeeds.com/. If you do not have these resources, I would suggest working through a syndication service that is currently feeding to us. Services I would check out are: listhub.com, NLS Point 2, vFlyer and Postlets. Also, if you currently advertise in The Real Estate Book or Homes and Land, they are sending your listings to us as well.
Mitchell- You were ahead of them! :) Regardless of which feed it comes from, your company or the corporate brokerage, you personally will still get the lead. I don't have an eta on when the listings will actually be up, so you definitely have first mover advantage for a little while longer!
Dick- We currently work with a few other national brands and most of the major aggregaters. Keep on the look out for more exciting announcements from other major brands soon.....
I wnder if my stuff wil show up twice as I already have a feed
Anne
Bob- Best to you with the switch.
Tracy- Interestly, about 85% of the traffic Zillow gets each month comes from people directly typing in zillow.com or zillow into a search engine. So with that, we really aren't taking traffic away from organic search.
This is good news for both consumers and Zillow. Just curious, Sara ... does Zillow have any stats for how many times agent profiles are visited versus listings? This might help to show the lead generation potential of your site.
I think this is bad news for the real estate market in general. Zillow tried to create it's own MLS previously & now it's somehow talked CB, ERA & C21 to join the program. It's sad to see that these companies didn't understand the value of their own listing base. Why don't realtors value their information? What do we have a MLS for? Zillow wants in on our MLS - wake up folks! Realtors don't need them - they need us!
If you delete this post - I'll just put it back up. AR still believes in freedom of expression!
Thanks Tracy for your post!
I'm not crazy about the deal. When I post on Zillow, I have links to my website and my email and have my cell phone number.
Once my company starts posting, the leads and calls will go to the main switchboard that will most likely go to voice mail on the weekends and after 5:00 (and some days 3:00). Links will be to the static company website that hasn't changed since they launched it years ago.
The best part is that the leads will go into a batch lead generation system and I get the honor of paying 15% MORE than my split to the company who generously marketed them for me. (Note sarcasm.)
As an agent who manually posts to as many websites as possible, I appreciate the fact that the company feeds will take over and I won't have to worry about price changes or changing out my "snow" pictures on each site.
As for those who don't like Zillow.com, they have taken share from REALTOR.com and other sites. If the consumers are there, I want my listings there.
I don't love Zillow and I don't hate Zillow. But, home buyers and sellers seem to love Zillow. And what our clients love, we must learn to embrace.
Lyn Sims, remember, when we take a listing we enter into an agency relationship with our clients and we are bound to work in their best interest. I have to ask you, how is it in our clients best interest to keep the listing information secret? Is it better for our clients to have a pocket listing, or is it better to have their house posted in as many places as possible for potential buyers to see it? How is Zillow bad for the Real Estate market? It may change the way we do business as Realtors, but Realtors are not the Real Estate market.
I'm with Lyn and Ardell on this one. I don't know a single seller who would want their house sitting there with the ridiculously low and uninformed 'zestimate' telling the world the house is 'overpriced'. The world according to Z doesn't quite cut it in the real world in my areas.
Craig and Amber - what I wrote above and what Ardell wrote are just the very reasons WHY it's not in any sellers' best interest. Sure, there may be some values that Z comes close to, or maybe even over, but from what I've seen, it's far more often low and not based on anything that we as REALTORS know the values should be based on.
Ann
When we affiliated with ERA last November I was skeptical ... but it seems like corporate is working hard every day to enhance our marketing position!
Ah, Eliese figured out why they agreed to do this-it's all about grabbing the leads first and selling them back to the in-house agents for that additional fee. That's gotta hurt.
And Ardell and Ann raise a very valid point, which is the reason I've stayed away from z-until the zestimates either go away or get more accurate, it's detrimental to sellers and buyers alike, in many situations.
Guess CB and the rest had to find a way to compete with the bigger brands-it's a tough market out there.
Just another example of the "McDonaldization" of the real estate business.
What does Zillow.com (or Homegain.com and the rest) contribute to the real estate industry? Nothing much, just another fast-food joint with minimal useful information, and little nutritional value. The big-box real estate companies love it because it's another "benefit" they can offer independent contractor agents who for some reason, graciously give away 40% to 50% of gross commisions earned plus a royalty. The fact is, Zillow.com is just another website, a free one, and as many have mentioned, not very accurate when it comes to their property valuations.
Sure, it's more eyeballs which of course has some value, and why on occasion I will post a listing there. But I think the point was well taken by another post that if I have a listing at 495K, and the Zestimate is 385K, aren't I (and my client) dead in the water? Much ado about nothing if you ask me.
To all those who asked for Agent Contact info on your listings - ERA has actually been feeding to the site for a couple of months now. Realogy found success with this company and is now expanding to feeding all of their brands. So, I can point you to the exposure that individual ERA Agents are getting on the site today. Here is an example - http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=6958996 Notice the Agent's information near the middle of the page.
This listing agent can come to Zillow and get a free profile. We will match up her profile with her listings. It is important that she uses the same email address in her profile as what ERA is sending us. Then her photo will populate on the site and will link to her profile which can include detailed information about her along with a link to her website.
So you are indeed going to get exposure on your listings, if we use ERA as an example.
With regards to building a site on the backbone of listings and selling the leads back you -
Zillow is actually one of the few real estate sites out there that did the opposite of this. We launched in Feb 2006 with unique content that we built (namely in the form of Zestimates) and attracted an audience of over 4 million monthly users without any listing content on the site. No listings appeared on the site until over a year later.
Once we had this huge audience, real estate professionals began asking us how they could leverage this audience and the public said that they wanted to know which of the homes they were researching were for sale- so the idea of partnering with RE professionals was born.
We have a valuable asset in our audience and we recognize that you have a valuable asset in your listing information. We consider this relationship a partnership, which is why is it free for you to list your properties for sale. Zillow sends all leads directly to where we are directed. We do not charge for leads, nor do we charge any sort of referral fee. We are a media company, meaning that we provide interesting content that draws an audience and then sell advertising around that.
Give me a frickin' break Sara you sound like a "Zomercial". In my area (which is also yours) Zillow is 30% off the market price. I can't go into a sellers kitchen & be 30% off on my price BUT YOU THINK you have a right to do that. Just one more reason why a computer can tell you alot of info but it can't tell you what you need.
Oh, & I just remembered that last time I looked for homes in the Schaumburg area by zipcode (60193), Zillow put listings in from towns up to 10 miles away to make it look to buyers that they had listings for that area in which they did not. Can prove that anytime you need that info. Folks - get on the computer in your area & check it for yourself & see what I mean.
You are not taking any market share away from Realtor.com by the way. Someone mentioned that above. I think you WANT us to believe you have market share. I bet if we tallied the figures C21 & CB could do well enough on their own with their OWN market share which their site generated. Still don't get why we need you girlfriend.
I agree with Ann above also. All you lovers of Zillow - common & join the fun!
Lyn- Sorry to sound like a commercial, but this is my post and feel like I have a right to supportdecisions Zillow has made on it.
Actually in Cook County (yours and my area) our margin of err is 8.8% (this information, as well as other counties in the us, can be found at http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracyIL.htm). Zillow is one of the only valuation sites that is completely transparent with our accuracy numbers.
Zillow was never intended to 'replace' the Realtor at the kitchen table. We have always said that people only use us as a starting point and should turn to a professional when they want more accurate information. I in no way think I have a 'right' to take a computer generated number into the kitchen and base a huge financial decision on this.
Zillow was create to be a consumer facing website. Realtor.com was built for Realtors. When consumers today shop for anything, they what every piece of information they can get their hands on, and no one in the real estate space was fully doing this. This what allowed Zillow to start and become so hugely successful so fast.
With regards to market share, Realtor.com has 6-8 million unique users a month and we are at 4-5 million. Even with R.com at those numbers, and being #1 in the space today, that still represents about a 10% market share of traffic. The fact is that real estate is local and local sites are still tremendously valuable to the public. It will be interesting to see how the national players play out over the next couple of years, but there is still much to be won at the local level by individuals.
"but there is still much to be won at the local level by individuals. "
Again, this is because we "at the local level..." are having to fight to keep our websites at top level on search engines against these big companies that automatically upload our information. Unless an agent or individual broker-in-charge have given permission to upload these listings, I might consider it steeling. Sorry if I don't completely understand the parameters of law, but that makes me upset.
It will either be at the sacrifice of agents or the blockade by agents of companies like Zillow.com will true real estate professionals be able to maintain that position.
Sara,
Zillow is a WASTE of web space and time. I can't believe these large brokerages were THAT STUPID! I would never list on Zillow unless I knew your stupid ZESTIMATE would work in their favor an not against them. I don't mind sites like Trulia that don't try to play God with the numbers and actually MONITOR THEIR BOARDS for abusive behavior. But you guys are truly a waste of space - create a ton of wasted time and energy for me explaining why your Zestimate isn't worth c**p. Your site is poorly run and monitored and if you had any modicum of responsibility, you'd knock it off with the zestimates that thousands of agents have told you aren't valid! I'm glad I work for a small company and have CHOICE in all this.
My advice - find another JOB...
Oh and btw, a margin of error of 8.8% is NOTHING to crow about. On a $500,000 house that's a $44,000 problem in either direction. If I were that far off walking into listing presentations, I wouldn't last very long. Its also an $88,0000 swing! GOOD GOD!!! What are you people thinking? Do you think?
Seriously, there is a lot of money on the line here. This is wildly irresponsible of the bunch of you.
Sara,
Interesting stuff. I'm a mortgage lender, and a first time client actually came to his appointment yesterday with all the stuff I normally ask for, and on top of the pile was a Zestimate from Zillow. First time that's happened.
Mike in Tucson
Hi, it's David from Zillow,
Mike Jones -
Was it close? FYI - keep your eyes on ZillowBlog; we're just finishing off an awesome mortgage offering that's about to be released.
Greg Knowles -
We do expire listings that aren't updated. Would you mind sending me one of the addresses you're talking about so I can research this further? [davidg AT zillow DOTCOM]
Scott -
Thanks! Let us know how it goes.
Dan -
McDonalds isn't a great analogy; Zillow does not sell homes and has no plans to. Zillow is a media company. Like a newspaper. A better analogy is that Zillow is the online version of the property section of every newspaper in the country. But even that analogy falls short of communicating the the community aspect of the site (100,000 Realtors have registered on Zillow.). In that regard, Zillow is a bit like AR, except most of our registered users are buyers, sellers and homeowners.
If the Zestimate is lower than your list price, you should definitely consider posting it on Zillow because:
Ruthmarie -
I'm sorry you struggle to explain Zestimates to your clients but I also hear from many agents who consider the Zestimate a great conversation starter. I guess it depends on your attitude. If you're defensive when Zillow's mentioned, you may not be winning your clients hearts and minds. I suggest you start by merely pointing out that the root of Zestimate is "estimate" and arm yourself with facts about Zillow's accuracy in your area. Consumers get it - if they're giving you a hard time it's just 'coz they're trying to figure out if you do.I love this lively discussion - 8.8% margin of error my Bu$$ ! I can prove it anytime & anyplace that your figures "the Zigures" are incorrect. What's great about a real person that knows the market is that I know just by looking at the listing picture most of the time what area the house is in. I can prove it with correct info from THE MLS, TAX RECORDS, etc. I can assure you that the last grouping I did in December was way off the 8.8%. HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTANCE WITH INFERIOR INFORMATION?
How about Consumer Fraud? Posting listings in one area that are not there! As RuthMarie said above - start working on your resume!
Lyn,
Spencer from Zillow here. Thank you for your comments.
According to the California Association of Realtors, 56% of buyers used Zillow during their home search. That's second only to Realtor.com. So clearly buyers are using Zillow, and as many commenters pointed out above, that means Zillow is a website that can't be ignored.
To your point about Zestimate accuracy (or inaccuracy, as the case may be), we all agree that inaccurate Zestimates are problematic for sellers and agents. That's why we have value ranges for each home (in addition to the Zestimate); that's why owners and agents can claim homes and edit home facts, which then impact the Zestimate; and that's why owners or agents can publish "My Estimate" for the home's value. In addition, we continue to work very hard to improve Zestimate accuracy -- a few weeks ago we released our new version of the Zestimate algorithms which are 12% more accurate across the board. Nonetheless, we won't rest until we make Zestimates as accurate as possible.
David - I RESENT THAT. Have you EVER sold homes??? Have you EVER listed homes? Your arrogance is simply ASTOUNDING!!! Right now we are dealing with buyers who think (wrongly in my area) that they are in the drivers seat and lowball everything to death...You finally convince them as to what a reasonable offer would be and then they see a ridiculous Zestimate that makes NO SENSE and they lowball. Just a couple of months ago I saw a Zestimate on Zillow that was so low it boggled the mind. Admittedly the house was listed rather high. But most people in my area put a CONSERVATIVE fair value at around $1.3 million. In truth, it could probably have fetched more, but I'm giving you the low side. Zillow had a ZESTIMATE of under $900,000! You were over $400k OFF!!! Do you have ANY idea how absolutely IRRESPONSIBLE this is? Your attitude is just as bad as your error factor. Buyers and sellers are being influenced by this information. People are making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives and they are using YOUR BAD NUMBERS to help guide them!
EITHER CREATE A SYSTEM THAT ACTUALLY WORKS - or get rid of the Zestimate. My problem with you people is that you throw numbers around and take NO RESPONSIBILITY for the results. I hope a bunch of sellers sue the pants off you guys. With that attitude, that's exactly what you deserve.
You give em hell Ruthmarie!!!! YaaHoo.
I can't believe that I just read what Spencer Rascoff just printed. "We all agree that inaccurate Zestimates can be problematic for sellers & agents. That's why we have value ranges for each home."
Again, let's go back to my earlier statement regarding being accurate on a home price plus/minus $30,000. Give me a break - you just don't get it - plus or minus $30,000 on a home priced at $219,900? I hope on your own personal home you have a "problematic Zestimate" & see how it feels to basically loose $30,000 to $40,000 on the whim of a computer algorithym.
NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RESULTS.
Here's another good blog that pointed out that Zillow also allows other realtors to post YOUR listings to Zillow if they want. How is that helping your seller Craig & Amber Smith?
Check it out Read this article and get informed about another great Zillow marketing strategy.
I can't believe the arrogance of Zillow & Spencer. He states that in CA 56% of Buyers used Zillow in their search. That's great! The problem is Zillow is giving 56% of the buyers in CA BOGUS information. And not only that they are giving bogus information with no consequences!!! If we as Real Estate Professionals managed to screw up as often as Zillow does with their Zestimates, we wouldn't be able to afford the premiums for the E&O insurance. You can work for weeks with a buyer about the correct offer and then just because they hear about Zillow on Good Morning America or the Today show, all of a sudden this website is the EXPERT and all of your work goes right out the window. We we go on a $225,000 listing appointment I wouldn't think of going out the door if the closest I could get is within $30,000 or even as stated by someone from Zillow above 8.8% give me a flippin break.
As a professional with a Coldwell Banker affiliate now I going to have to look at more stupid offers because Zillow "The Experts" said this is all the home was worth!
I'd like to clarify my comment. We hear from agents that it can be frustrating for both them and their sellers to explain Zestimates to buyers and that it's even more frustrating when the Zestimate is off. I understand that frustration and my comment was intended to acknowledge it; not to rub anyone's noses in it. Sorry if it didn't come across that way.
At the same time, I want to make it clear that I doubt if an inaccurate Zestimate would ever directly cost you a deal and that focusing too much on your listing's Zestimate accuracy is probably a distraction from those things that do sell a home.
Some buyers will quote Zestimate values when they're negotiating and so do many sellers. Negotiations are nothing new to the Real Estate game and if it wasn't a Zestimate, you'd be hearing about an odd comp, recent sale price or a tax assessed value. The point is that you should never lose a negotiation to a Zestimate or to any other site's free value estimate for that matter. I'm confident that Zillow provides professionals with the data they need to win that negotiation and that we're available to help you understand it and how best to market your listings on our site. I also believe that those in the real estate industry -- buyers, sellers, owners and agents -- are better off with Zillow in existence than not.
What I find interesting is how a Billion dollar company does not have the creative talent to create something that would blow Zillow out of the water.
Paul, I would guess your last comment is in regard to Realogy. I would jump in and say that Realogy is an awesome company with a tremendous depth of talent. While I might not be a fan of Zillow, I think in the long run, more exposure for all of our listings is a good thing for our sellers. Also let's not forget, the folks at Cendant are the ones that launched Move.com about 7 1/2 years ago and Homestore bought the site within the year.
Brian Bartley
Brian,
"Property listings under the Realogy brand networks, which include listings from Realogy-owned brokerages operated by its subsidiary, NRT LLC, will be dynamically uploaded to Zillow on a daily basis, providing its brokerages with additional marketing exposure for their properties while enhancing the search experience for Zillow's users. Upon viewing the listings on Zillow.com, consumers will have the option to click a link to the listing brokerage's Web site where they can locate a Realogy-affiliated agent to guide them through the home buying and selling experience."
Actually, you are right Brian. They are very creative.