Sam Shueh
Realty One Group
Silicon Valley, CA
Zillow which purchased Trulia, Hotpads etc. among lending, flipping homes start charging landlord money for listing homes for rent.
Right now if the first active listing in Oregon is free. Starting with your second listing, it costs $9.99 per week to list your rental on Zillow, Trulia and HotPads. That goes to apartments, multifamilies as well. I am not aware there are exceptions to this yet.
This is no surprise. I believe owners who want to put an ad printed or digital should pay a fee. Craigslist refuses to charge a fee and end up with a site full of scams ads. Realtors vacant home sale listings then become target as baits as rentals. Someone charges a deposit and pretent it is for lease.
That being said. Zillow lately under the new CEO who also founded Expedia is all out to make its site profitable. A number of businessman and investment firms believe the company is over its head. The Big Short investor like Steve Eiseman put it this way: " Zillow does not understand its own massive risks". He himself is borrowing stocks and sell them later at lower price bets stocks will drop lower. Apparently, many in Wall Street agree with his strategy. Z just lost its valuation $1.6 billion dollars from last Thursday. The stock market tanked -21% in two days after disappointing earnings from its earnings.
In the mean time, its core business in Premier Agent changed to Premier Agent Flex. Agents now pay when they get a deal after a lead valid or not. Previously, agents pay by zip code and over time 11 agent per zip has to compete with 3 other paid agents reducing the opportunity to be contacted for any leads valid or not.
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