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Zillow By The Numbers

By Sara Bonert

Services for Real Estate Pros with Zillow

January 16, 2008 09:57 AM

Recently my colleague and fellow ARer (is that a word?) Spencer, did a post recapping a recent survey of Realtors who use Zillow. It was very interesting and I wanted to give that post some attention.

To build on Spencer's post, it is also interesting to look at the flip side with regard to how the general public is using Zillow.

So for all of you number people out there, enjoy!

4 Million unique people visiting the site each month.

25% of these people come more than 10 times in the same month!
21% of this audience are real estate professionals (Investors, Agents, Brokers, Lenders, Builders, Appraisers).

90% of our audience owns a home and 65% are actively in the real estate market.
Over 40,000 Agents have created a free profile on Zillow.
37 Million homes have been viewed on Zillow since launch- that's 40% of all homes in the country!
More than 25,000 community contributions are made to the site each day.

1.5 Million homes have been claimed by their owners, with about 1,000,000 of them updating some information on the record.
Nearly 4 Million photos have been added by people.
151,000+ discussion point and 70,000+ questions and answers on homes have been written

The 2007 CAR study showed that buyers considered Zillow one of the most useful sites during the home buying process, ahead of Craigslist or Google. Specific CAR rankings for most useful:

Web sites with listings that buyer was interested in (81%),
Individual agent's Web site (80%),
Realtor.com (80%)
Zillow (54%)
Real estate company web sites (40%)
Craigslist (24%)
Google (7%)

Over 100,000 homeowners have posted a Make Me Move price since the feature launched a year ago.
Most people who post a Make Me Move price on their home plan to use an agent if the home sells:

91% of homeowners who posted a Make Me Move price say they would consider paying an agent commission if their home were to sell. Most (64%) say they would pay between 2-3%.
About half (45%) of people who post a Make Me Move price on their home say they would use an agent on the sell side to complete the transaction.

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Dave Woodson

Dave Woodson - Chesterton, IN

Not the Average Agent

Zillow will kill us all

no, just kidding, I like it a lot and I have established myself on there as best as I can

Jan 16, 2008 10:03 AM

Pat O'Reilly

RE/MAX..214-289-6176 Irving and all of Dallas Fort Worth - Irving, TX

Thanks for the information. I did not see Spencers post....

Vance Shutes

Real Estate One - Saline, MI

Your Saline, MI Real Estate Connection

Sara,

Fascinating statistics! I had no idea about any of them. Thanks!

Jan 16, 2008 10:04 AM

Eleanor Thorne

Equity Resources - Cary, NC

Advantage Lending 919-649-5058

A couple thoughts.........

25% come back more than 10 times and 21% of the audience is agents (and the like). Can we assume that those two stats correlate in that most of those viewers that come back more than ten times are probably agents (and the like). I don't know, that was the first thought that popped into my head.

Another random thought........knowing that 91% of the people that post a 'make me move' price on the site would consider using an agent, are you guys encouraging agents to add these addresses to their database and consider marketing to these people?

Jan 16, 2008 10:14 AM

Elaine Crosier

Investor - Aliso Viejo, CA

So what do you think of www.cyberhomes.com? Similar to Zillow but different - more info on CMA etc. I find there can be significant differences in values - not sure why. Wondering if one is more acurate than the other.

Sara Bonert

Zillow - Atlanta, GA

Real Estate Internet Marketing

Elenor- That is good question, honestly I don't know the overlap of 25% and 21%, I'm sure there is some, but not all. For example, I do hear from mortgage lenders that say they use the site all the time. On the other, and we are still working the numbers out here, we can actually see how close someone is getting to moving by how ofter they look at their home. So maybe the average person visits the site once every six months (I am making this number up), but as they get closer to moving this number increasingly gets higher and higher. So I am sure that plays into the 25% as well.

With regards to the 91%, I would say that this is very similar to a FSBO pool of people and many Realtors have a strategy around that. I won't spam them with marketing materials on 'why you are the best' or anything, but I think there is a way to interact with them early on in their real estate process by providing information of value to them.

Elaine- I can't speak to Cyberhome (or any other AVM) being more accurate than Zillow because Zillow is the only site that actually published our accuracy numbers. So I have nothing to compare it to. I do know that we get a lot more traffic than them, which is important when you consider both sites as a marketing platform. I am not 100% sure what Cyberhomes long term strategy is. They do have a lot of data on the site, but beyond valuations and listings, I can't figure out what is going to make them unique, as there are many sites out there that have this info. Zillow's edge is that we have really opened the site up to allow people and professionals to write to the site by way of neighborhood pages, Q&A on specific homes, our Discussions section, and Real Estate guide section. We give a platform for two way conversations to happen and are really trying to build out a place where dynamic conversations are happening.

Whew- long answers for both of you! Good comments, I appreciate the thought behind them.

Jan 17, 2008 12:38 AM

Wayne Pehrson

Sandia Peak Realty - Albuquerque, NM

Realtor, Albuquerque NM

The numbers you mentioned are interesting. I am one of the 4 Million people monthly that visit Zillow. I do not visit 10 times per month on average. Zillow is an interesting website, unfortunately in my area is not very accurate. Zillow's price is off 30K-50K for my neighborhood. Personally I think people using Zillow realize the price is not accurate and would use a Realtor to make sure they are making an informed decision. Zillow will only get better as more people post accurate information. As your first comment by Dave Woodson mentions "Zillow will kill us all" if we are all about numbers and not offering service or other value to the client.

Wayne

Jan 17, 2008 10:03 AM

Anthea Click

Fresh Perspectives - www.InsideNashvilleHomes.com - Franklin, TN

Nashville Home Stager - Selling Nashville, TN homes quickly!

Wow! These numbers are great. Do you offer free profiles for home stagers?

Jan 19, 2008 03:35 PM

Anthea- Yes, any professional can set up a profile. After you have a profile, you can participate in all of the discussions going on around staging. http://www.zillow.com/forum/Search.htm?s=staging

Jan 20, 2008 09:42 AM

Zillow By The Numbers

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Sara Bonert

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