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.
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?
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.
Real estate is local when it comes to market conditions and market trends. Real estate differs from region to region in styles, architecture and amenities generally speaking. For instance; in Florida fireplaces are not the norm whereas in cold winter areas such as Colorado, fireplaces are a standard addition to a home. In some areas of our country people have wood burning stoves and others have coal burning furnaces. There are areas of our country such as here in Florida where you would not dare live without Air Conditioning but in many homes in Washington for instance, air conditioning is more of a luxury than a necessity.
So when we are discussing the effects of cap and trade in your real estate business you will need to take into account the region in which you live as some areas will be more effected than others.
You can move your mouse over the map and see who voted, what party they belong to and their district. You will be able to see that no matter whether they were democrats or republicans if they are in the farm country of America, high manufacturing areas of America, low energy bills of America and the heartland of America- they voted NO on this bill and for very good reasons.
"For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over that span. Electricity costs go up 90 percent by 2035, gasoline by 58 percent, and natural gas by 55 percent by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then will be nearly $20,000.
But direct energy costs are only part of the consumer impact. Nearly everything goes up, since higher energy costs raise production costs. If you look at the total cost of Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the total cost is over $4,600." Heritage Foundation.
You will notice that the states where the votes were yes are also the states that already have the highest energy bills. The states that voted no are mostly states with presently low energy bills.
Instead of calling this to Cap and Trade- We can really call it the Tax On Electricity Bill.
How does this information pertain to real estate agents? If you live in the lower energy pricing states you are going to be seeing huge increases in household energy bills. If you live in states that are coal powered or oil powered you will see the largest increases ever in your energy bills because those energy sources are going to be punished with taxation.
How is that going to effect home prices?
How is that going to effect movement in and out of your state?
How is that going to effect your real estate office utility bills and who is going to pay for this?
The House is at it again. This was a 1,300 page bill and again as with so many large bills was not read by most of those that voted yes or no. What is it that they don't get? The American people expect our leaders to read what they vote on.
So what else is tucked away neatly into this bill that perhaps no one knows the full implications of yet?
How about the Federal imposition and takeover of building codes? Your local planning and building offices will not be qualified for any Federal funding of any kind unless they adopt what the FEDS say is the new energy efficient building standards. This will create higher prices in building new homes which is then passed on the homebuyers and then you as a real estate agent are also effected because less buyers will be able to afford to buy a new home built . Not to mention having to wait for the Feds to come and inspect the builders and the homes.
How about the new Federal EnergyNazis Inspectors who will come and rate your home before you can sell your home. So before you can list a home for sale, the seller will have to wait for the Federal inspectors to come out. DMV lines anyone? Once that inspector comes out, he or she will give the home an energy rating. If the home does not meet the guidelines the seller will be required to do the work necessary to bring the home up to energy standards before they can sell the home! Can we say money? Does that mean that there will be homeowners who will become prisoners in their homes because they can not afford to make the energy repairs that the feds require? Is that an invasion of your privacy as well as an attack on your property rights?
Hmmm, how is that going to effect short sales where the seller has no money to make the repairs and adjustments?
How is that going to effect your ability to get listings in a timely manner?
How is that going to effect your seller who is about to lose their home in a foreclosure?
How is that going to effect the seller who has to relocate for their job?
How is that going to effect the estates with heirs having to do these repairs and such when there won't be any money until the estate is sold?
I wonder if our House of Representatives and our Congress men and women EVER thought to actually ask us in the field working this business day in and day out how these bills will effect the housing market?
Of course, the US will be living Cap and Tax while the real perpetrators of dirty air like China and India get off scott free. There will be an unfair advantage in pricing products and manufacturing to the point that if a US company even stands a chance of staying in the manufacturing business will have no choice but to move their company oversees which in turn will cause a massive layoff of people increasing the already high unemployment problem we are facing in our country.
How will the unemployment effect your real estate business?
How will the unemployment effect the REOs and massive foreclosures in your community?
How will the unemployment effect home values as you get more and more vacant properties in your area?
If you are an agent in America's farmland you will begin to see farms no longer being able to produce a profit. Farms use a lot of energy. Energy use will be punished. This is why nearly every politician from a farm land state no matter what party they are affiliated with voted no to this bill. Their districts will suffer terribly. As this happens we will be buying more and more produce from other countries with far less health standards than our own. I don't trust foods, especially produce from China or other countries except Europe. But we don't import our veggies from Europe!
How is this going to effect your real esate business if you live and work in a farm land state?
When it comes down to the nitty and the gritty about this bill you must remember that GE is the biggest supporter of this bill. They stand to make billions of dollars from the passage of this bill. The politicians voting yes on this bill, many of them are getting paid to vote yes. And Al Gore will become the very first GREEN billionaire. It is just too bad that he is not a real capitalist. He could not become a billionaire playing fair and square. Instead, he has an unfair advantage, legislation to make him filthy rich. Not exactly the free market way. It is all about the money.
Contact your Senators now to vote NO now. Click on this link to find your Senators and contact them by email, phone and fax today. Let them know how this is going to effect your business and your community homeowners and buyers. Pass this on...
First: I love my Nokia PDA. It is a great phone. It does everything I want from a phone: E-Mail, Web browsing, Tethering even SIP-Telephony without a glitch. Fun stuff also like Google Latitude, always letting my family know where I am. Google Earth and a lot more.
I tried the first iPhone years ago. After a few days I gave it to my daughter. Too many things I loved on my Nokia PDA, it could but would not do (because of some agreements between Apple and At&T).
Then last weekend everything changed:
I drove with a client to look at a home in an area where they would love to move to, but were not able to find the right home. We looked at this home, but sure enough there where to many issues that did not fit their criteria. So we looked around for other homes for sale in the area.
I was prepared. I had my notebook connected via Bluetooth with my Nokia to the Internet (Tethering). I am a technology freak. Always up to date! Not many of the Realtors I know would even try this on the road.
So I thought.....
We found a home that looked interesting, so I started entering the address into the MLS when my Client, playing with his iPhone, read out loud all the info of the home: Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Sqft, sale price. I wasn't even finished typing in the address. Then he showed me pictures of the inside on his iPhone.
Now I just found myself in the stone age of technology! 5min ago I thought I was at the cutting edge. Wow what a feeling.
Things like that happen to me only one time!
Back home I ordered the new iPhone 3G S online. I also bought a device to mount it in my car like a navigator.
Now I am back in the game and wonder how I survived without this device. I always have Zillow activated, so while I drive through town, I can see the real estate information about the homes I am passing automatically. The built in GPS follows my route and shows me the homes around me without any interaction with the phone. If I am interested in a home, I tap my finger on the home and receive more details and in many cases pictures from the inside. What a great tool to have, and now I am impressing my clients!
Looking forward to show you homes in the area and being able to answer your questions about every home, even if I don't know all the details. I just look them up right then and there!
See you soon! Richard
Dipl.-Ing. Richard A. Stephan Licensed Realtor® ENGEL & VÖLKERS ORLANDO-CELEBRATION License Partner of Engel & Voelkers Florida Residential Real Estate, LLC 1420 Celebration Blvd. Suite 200 Celebration, Florida 34747 / USA Mobile: +1 - 407 - 433 - 8702 Fax : +1 - 407 - 624 - 4855 My Website: www.RichardStephanRealtor.com Office Website: www.engelvoelkers.com/celebration Mail To: RichardStephan@me.com
On Zillow we bring attention to those who contribute the most by awarding Zillow All-Star and Zillow Local Expert badges.
These badges appear on profile pages and can also be posted on your other marketing efforts (such as on your Active Rain blog). People with these badges are also given better placement in the Professional Directory, with the idea that those that are the most helpful should get the best exposure on the site.
All this on top of the obvious benefits that come with contributing more, which is getting to connect with more potential clients.
What is a Zillow All-Star? The All-Star badge is given to active Zillow users who share their real estate knowledge and help others by contributing high-quality content.
What is a Zillow Local Expert? Local Experts are active Zillow users who share their real estate knowledge and help others by contributing high-quality content at a local level.
So make sure your listings are online, upload neighborhood photos and most of all, participate in Zillow Advice- and earn your designations as being a helpful, knowledgable professional on Zillow.
About 2 months ago, Zillow rolled out our first iPhone app with tremendous success. In 2 months we have had over 400,000 downloads, immediately giving our listing partners a mobile component, on the most popular smart phone real estate application, to their marketing plan.
Thanks to feedback from our users, some smart engineers, and updates Apple just rolled out to the smart phone's operating system - we now have a second version of the app that is even more useful.
Filter search results by beds, baths, price, and status
Save searches
Save favorite homes
Apple also recently release Push Notification technology. Now, if you have a saved search and new homes come into the system that match, you will see a numbered badge on the Zillow iPhone App icon which indicates that there are new homes to see. Then, you can launch the App to see these results under your Favorites tab.
If you already have Version 1 downloaded, you can update to V2 in your "Updates" tab in the app store to get the new version. (you'll also want to make sure you update your iPhone software to the new OS 3.0).
If you missed the first release and don't know everything the Zillow iPhone app can do, go download the Zillow iPhone Apptoday or watch this short video:
The Zillow iPhone app can follow you as you move through a neighborhood, while displaying information on approximately 90 million homes, including those that are for sale or recently sold.
Zillow had another record month for traffic in May 2009 -- 8.9 million unique visitors, up 72% year-over-year.
(Note: Zillow measures our traffic using Omniture logs which track the actual usage of our website, rather than a small panel of users which are then extrapolated to try to guess the actual usage.)
Here are some other interesting tidbits from our record month in May:
17.1% of residents in the San Francisco - Oakland - San Jose area visited Zillow in the month of May. 17%!! That's crazy.
12.2% of Seattle residents visited in May.
11.7% of San Diego residents visited in May.
Our traffic is growing 80% year-over-year in New York and 88% year-over-year in Washington DC
Our largest city in terms of visitor traffic is Los Angeles, where 1.6 million visitors came to the site in May.
Here are our traffic statistics by city. Please check your city to see how big we are in your neck of the woods. Type your city into the "search" box in the upper right of the file here.
[These numbers are total visitors, not unique visitors. The shorthand math is that we get about 2 visitors per visitor, so if you want to get to the unique visitor count in your city, divide the numbers below by 2.]
And remember that you can speak with someone on our sales team at 866-324-4005 or learn more here.
We are continuing to put out more videos from Zillow! Here you can meet some of the folks that you may have seen around the RE.net. These videos also appear on their Zillow profile pages. You can have a profile page too for free (with video if you want!)
Rich Barton, Chairman and Co Founder
David Gibbons, Director of Community Relations (and social media extraordinaire!)
Drew Meyers, Also active in the blogosphere. You may also deal with Drew if you have questions about to implement any of our widgets or API calls.
Spencer Rascoff, COO who is also very active here on Active Rain
So hopefully this brings personality to some of the folks you may have interacted with online over the years.
I just returned the NAR Midyear meeting, and once again the most popular subject I got asked about was the Zestimate. Where does the data come from and how accurate are they are the most common questions.
We at Zillow are working on creating a library of training videos, and I am please to now give you a training video on the Zestimate to help answer these questions. Actually, we created two videos on the subject.
This first video is geared toward Real Estate professional, and how the Zestimate works along side of your listing information.
The second video is geared more toward the home owner, buyer or seller. If you are working with a client that is using the Zestimate as an appraisal (verses just a starting point or an estimation), this could be a good video to pass along to them.
Both of these videos are available on You Tube
Also, please make sure to check out these other videos on various Zillow topics.
If your listings still aren't on Zillow, there is now another reason they should be: mobile.
Two weeks ago Zillow release an iPhone application, and boy was it popular.
#1 Real Estate app
#1 free app in the Lifestyle category
#12 Top Free App
Over 300,000 downloads!
Now you may be thinking, but I don't have an iPhone, so this doesn't affect me. While you don't have an iPhone (still a blackberry user myself), guess what, millions of people who are buying and selling do. And at least 300,000 are interested in real estate, otherwise they wouldn't have download the application. When you list on Zillow, not only are your listings there for the 8.5 million people that visit the site each month, but now they can be accessed on-the-go as well. All of your contact information is right on your listings as well.
Imagine this: a women walking around her neighborhood, iPhone in hand. With the Zillow app, she can see an estimation of what each house is worth as she walks by. Then she comes to one of your listings. It is on Zillow, so she immediately has access all of the homes details, including price, description and multiple photos. After seeing all of this data, she pushes a button and can places a call to you, the listing agent. How qualified would that woman be?
Zillow is the number one most downloaded real estate app in the iTunes store. If you listings aren't on Zillow you are missing out on a big exposure opportunity. If they are on Zillow, you now have a mobile component to add to your listing presentation for your Sellers and yet another avenue to reach Buyers.
Find out more about posting your listings on Zillow by watching this short video.
And here is another video, if you would like to learn more about the iPhone app and its capabilities.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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had over 400,000 downloads, immediately giving our listing partners a mobile component, on the most popular smart phone real estate application, to their marketing plan. 
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