Zillow Just Became Irrelevant... or did it?

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Zillow Just Became Irrelevant... or did it?

It's too early for me to make a prediction about the company that has my phone ringing off the hook with people excited about their purchases, since the Zestimate is over inflated.

Here's the great e-mail I received.

As a valued member of the Zillow community with a home posted for sale on Zillow, we'd like to notify you of an important change.

Beginning today, in order to post a home for sale on Zillow, you can either buy a Featured Listing for $9.95 per listing for a 180-day period, or, if you have 50 or more listings, you can send us a listings feed, for free.

Since you currently have a home posted for sale, your listing will expire on January 13, 2010 unless you extend it by purchasing a Featured Listing. We feel this change will help improve the quality of listings on our site, which will provide a better customer experience for the millions of buyers who visit Zillow each month.

Zillow isn't a platform that is working for me in Atlanta GA, so I'll keep on plugging away here.

Joshua Jarvis

direct : 770-374-4667
Atlanta Short Sales | GA Real Estate In HD

Posted by Joshua Jarvis on 12/16/2009 03:46 PM

Comments (11)

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11 Comments on Zillow Just Became Irrelevant... or did it?

DEC

2009

I haven't used zillow much but have seen how their zestimate is way high.

Hi Joshua:

I concur.

I have a Zillow free account that I mainly use for Q&A with buyers, however not only are their stats far out, but some of the people are too:)

More and more, "serious" home buyer's and seller's seem to be gravitating toward Trulia.

(and no I do not work for them.)

Johnny "Culdesac" Yankoviak

www.johnnyculdesac.com

Hmm, I hope I am not one of the people that you are referring to with the 'far out' comment... haha.

Hey all- If is helps, here is an Accuracy Table for the Zestimates in your respective counties. I have heard it really helps Agents deal with people that thing the Zestimate represents something it is not. Helps overcome their statement with pure data - http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracy.htm

I just wanted to make sure one thing was clear regarding the text you quote above. It is still totally free to have your listings post to the site from any type of syndication service or through your Broker/Franchise. For example Josh, your listings come to us via Point2 or Keller Williams - so this change doesn't affect you at all. Only 2% of the listings posted to the site by agents are done by hand, and these are the people that have the choice now of paying the 9.95 for 180 days of Featured advertising on the site or they can use a syndication service. (well, actually anyone could buy the advertising).

The primary motivation for charging this nominal fee was to improve the quality of our listings. Too often the listing agent who posted it on Zillow manually forgot to come back and update the price. We believe that charging a nominal fee will improve the quality of our listings.

Sara,

The link about accuracy proves my point. My county is darn close in terms of accuracy, but Zillow is WAY OFF on my home. So as a snapshot tool Zillow works, but a Zestimate is still worse than a guestimate.

Listing Quality is important but charging won't likely accomplish the goal you want, instead it'll act as a deterent to engage in the site.

Just my 2 cents.

I got that email too and the first word that also came to my mind was "irrelvant." If you thought that. And I thought that. I wonder how many others thought that as well. Guess we'll see.

DEC

2009

In my area, Zillow always was pretty much irrelevant. The valuations were never very accurate here. But yes, I think charging for listings is a bad decision on their part.

DEC

2009

Why doesn't Zillow adjust their zestimates? A no brainer in my mind. Am I missing something?

They charge home inspectors an arm and a leg to advertise. The same rates as other professionals. Seems a bit out of touch with reality to me, but what do I know, I'm just a home inspector? :)

DEC

2009

The average values using the Zillow Zestimate in our community is not generally very realistic in the current market and it wasn't very realistic even 2 years ago when the values were stronger. However, I have a friend in Cincinnati, Ohio and he claims that about 50% of the values are within 10% of a realistic market value.

DEC

2009

Hey Sam - Your friend isn't too far off. In Ohio, 66% of the values are within 10% of sales prices. Specially in Hamilton county, that number is 43%. Data here.

JAN

2010

Information on Zillow is out dated and their valuation is way off But

consumers look at Zillow to find realtors and real estate

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Joshua Jarvis

Duluth, GA

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