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“I love Zillow.”  “I liked them before they were big.”   

Saying that I was a big fan of Zillow.com from the start is kind of like saying, “I liked Dave Matthews before he got big” (My wife, a Virginia native, loves to say that).  For one, nobody believes you, and second, nobody cares.  Regardless of what people would think of me, I’ll say it. I love Zillow, specifically, the Zestimate™.   If you haven’t been following along, Zillow has come of age. I personally like to go on the record with my likes and dislikes ahead of time. I keep a record whether I’m right or wrong. I feel that there are a couple of components missing that will have to be incorporated quickly if Zillow wants to become a fixture in real estate. One of them is probably the most important.   It’s built off an assumption.  

Assumption - People are inherently lazy. If someone doesn’t have to do something, they won’t.  If it doesn’t look easy, they will put it off for later (and probably never do it!). Bottom line - people will choose the path of least resistance. I know this doesn’t apply to the hard working bloggers out there or my clients that are reading this but it’s true of the majority of people. 

1.      Brokers/Agents don’t want to spend all their time uploading their listings to Zillow.

2.      People want to see everything that is for sale and don’t want to go all over the place to find it.

Solution -   Make it easy.Easy for Brokers - Until Zillow can automatically pull in the IDX data or data that is being posted on websites (My Ihouse website automatically feeds Yahoo, Oogle, and Trulia with a click of a button, but I hate the website designs), Zillow will never gain even 50% of listings out there because, in my opinion, most brokers/agents are lazy (no offense).  Also, most agents are not web-savvy. (I’ve read the average age of a real estate agent is in their 50’s, does this say web-savvy to you?) They don’t want to be entering their listings over and over again for each site, they want easy.  Easy for People (especially buyers) -  People (The mob) is even worse.  If you’re a FSBO listen up!  When I get a listing, it gets posted all over the internet.  It’s on the local MLS, the local MLS public page, Realtor.com, Yahoo.com, and every other site that draws from the IDX.  I also post them on craigslist, my website, and some homes even get their own website but where do you think the actual phone calls and emails come from? Most don’t come from the internet, at least not yet.  It’s a given that a broker will sell a listing if he lists it at the right price on the MLS.  He could get slightly more for the place if he expertly markets the home property to play up its high points.  The majority of  buyers in my view, a little better than 75% of home sales in Denver, come from cooperating with another local agent and the rest come from leads to the listing agent.  This means to me that buyers wander around the internet until they’re sucked into the net of marketing put out by good agents.  When someone looks at the MLS, they believe they are seeing everything for sale.  Because of this, people either make the move to purchase or wait because there was nothing they wanted to buy. They saw it all.  It’s all on the MLS.  Therefore, if Zillow wants to compete, it needs to feel like it covers everything. Agents want their listings posted on Zillow.  As long as Zillow is not branded by another company, brokers will want it done.  For Zillow to be a long term success buyers need to have the feeling that looking at homes on Zillow saves time.  If it’s good for buyers, it’s good for brokers.  Make it easier for them because people don’t need Zillow to buy a home right now.    Buyers will come because they don’t want to feel like they’re being ripped off and they want to compare the Zestimate™ with the list price. Though, I’m sure some come to see the cool bird’s eye views of the home, most people want something more tangible.  (I can’t see my house.  I was disappointed.)  As long as there are some buyers on Zillow, I will post all my listings there but I don’t think most agents will go thru the trouble.  So I think this is priority number one for Zillow, making it easier to get the listings up and running.  Zillow hasn’t made any wrong moves yet so I’m sure there is a whole team of people working on it.

And for anyone who still hasn’t heard about the most interesting thing to happen this year in internet real estate, please see my previous post, the ZillowBlog or follow this link to DrewMeyers extensive list of responses. 

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