Zillow Year-End Update and Report - A Record-Breaking 2010

I'm reporting this "LIVE" from our office in Seattle, WA today where it's a GREAT day, the skies are crystal clear, the air is brisk and fresh, and the following updates and news is just too "HOT" not to share.

Here's the latest update and report for those of you who have been asking me "How's things going over at Zillow?"  I'm really excited to share that I just found out our company had a Record-Breaking 2010!  Wow, I just finished celebrating the New Year with friends and family and now it looks like I'll have to go out and celebrate some more tonight.  Anybody out and about in the Seattle, WA area this evening?  hehe~

Our website and mobile usage hit an all-time peak in December and Zillow traffic surpassed 13 Million Unique Users Per Month.  This is very exciting news.

SEATTLE, Jan. 3 – Real estate information company Zillow Inc. wrapped up 2010 with a record-breaking traffic month, which capped a year of significant business announcements and usage milestones.  Zillow logged more than 13 million unique users* in the traditionally slow real estate month of December, the most in any month since the company’s launch in 2006. 

That represents year-over-year traffic growth of 77 percent.

Additionally, Zillow is now running the largest online real estate ad network in the country**, thanks to a partnership with Yahoo! Real Estate, which was announced in July.  Zillow sells real estate advertising for both sites and, beginning in the first quarter of 2011, will power all for-sale listings on Yahoo! Real Estate.  Zillow Inc.’s individual business units, Zillow.com®, Zillow Mobile and Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, all logged important milestones.

Additional milestones for 2010 include:

•    Zillow Mobile launched apps on Android and iPad in early 2010, in addition to continuing to operate the number-one real estate app on the iPhone. Consumers now look at homes 20,000 times per hour while using Zillow Mobile. The Zillow apps are the most popular real estate apps on iPhone, iPad and Android.

•    Zillow Inc. became profitable in 2010.

•    Former COO Spencer Rascoff was promoted to CEO of Zillow Inc. in September. He replaced Zillow co-founder Rich Barton, who remains with Zillow as executive chairman.

•    There are nearly 100 million homes in Zillow’s database of all homes; 4 million are for sale and more than 170,000 are for rent.

•    Zillow in September announced a partnership with Apartments.com, which brought Apartments.com’s national database of rental listings to Zillow.com and Zillow Mobile.

•    Zillow Mortgage Marketplace became Zillow Inc.’s fastest-growing business, receiving nearly 300,000 consumer loan requests per month.

•    Data from Zillow’s real estate economics arm, including the Zillow Home Value Index, was widely used by academic and government institutions during 2010. Zillow data appeared in reports by the Congressional Oversight Panel, several branches of the Federal Reserve and numerous academic institutions.

“The past year has been a monumental one for Zillow,” said Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff. “We accomplished many of our goals.  Zillow is profitable and, thanks to innovations and partnerships like the one we have with Yahoo! Real Estate, we’re an even greater resource for consumers and real estate professionals alike. We’re looking forward to celebrating our fifth anniversary in 2011 with anticipation and high hopes for the year to come.”

Now I'd love to be able to say that all this success is because I joined the Zillow team, but we all know that would be a big fib. However,  I do look forward to 2011 being a prosperous year for us all.  I'm confident that my contributions, as small as they may be will have a significant and measurable impact on next years 2011 report and year-end update.

"How's things going over at Zillow?" I'd have to say fabulous, these are very exciting times! :-)

What is Zillow? For those of you who may not know:

Zillow Inc. is a real estate information company with a marketplace where homeowners, buyers, sellers, renters, real estate agents and mortgage professionals find and share vital information about homes and mortgages. Launched in early 2006 with Zestimate® home values and data on millions of U.S. homes, Zillow has since added homes for sale and homes for rent, a directory of real estate and lending professionals, Zillow Advice, Zillow Mobile apps and Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. One of the most-visited U.S. real estate websites, with more than 13 million unique visitors per month, Zillow's goal is to help people become smarter about homes and real estate in every stage of their lives -- home buying, selling, renting, remodeling and financing.  The company is headquartered in Seattle.

* Unique users to Zillow are measured by Omniture, December 2010.
** The Zillow/Yahoo! Real Estate Network was the most-visited real estate entity (including both networks and individual websites) as measured by comScore Media Metrix Key Measures – Ranked Category, November 2010.