zillow: Home prices continue to slide - 05/06/08 04:22 AM






Zillow released our Q1 Home Value Report today -- a comprehensive look at what's happening to house prices nationwide. And it's grim. Here are some highlights (or lowlights):
- nationwide, home prices declined 8% year-over-year, the 5th quarter in a row of declining prices and the largest decline in the 12 years for which Zillow has data
- 5 of the top 10 declines were in California
- 130 of the 160 cities we studied declined; 29 of the 30 largest cities declined (Dallas was the holdout)
- 45% of homeowners who bought their home in 2007 are … (37 comments)

zillow: Less work? Then charge less. - 05/01/08 11:30 AM
I was talking to a real estate broker friend of mine (who also owns a mortgage brokerage) earlier this week about Zillow Mortgage Marketplace (see my earlier post here) and he said something interesting to me. He said that his mortgage brokers are having good success finding borrowers through Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, and that he had hired a junior loan officer just to respond to Loan Requests on Zillow. But he said that he was going to do a better job encouraging his loan officers to quote more competitive rates in line with the effort required from the channel.
His point … (34 comments)

zillow: Marketwatch video about real estate trends - 04/29/08 01:13 AM
(1 comments)

zillow: Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, 3 weeks in - 04/25/08 06:44 AM

The Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is now about three weeks old, so I thought I'd give an update.
What is it?
In short, think of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace like a free, anonymous version of Lending Tree. Borrowers submit loan requests but don't share their name, their SS# or their phone #. Lenders then respond to the Loan Requests with their own customized Loan Quotes, for free. Borrowers then choose which lender to reach out to and the borrower contacts the lender. The entire marketplace is transparent, so everyone can see what loan requests have been submitted, and what loan quotes have been returned.
Is it … (28 comments)

zillow: The internet's impact on the housing downturn - 04/21/08 04:09 PM
Obviously there are many more online resources available to buyers, sellers, homeowners and agents now than at any time in history. These tools have proliferated rapidly -- it's hard to believe, but only a few years ago homeowners couldn't get home valuations; sellers had to rely solely on the MLS to market their listing; agents had to rely almost exclusively on newspaper classifieds; heck, buyers couldn't even find the address for most listings, no less other info about the home. A lot of these tools have become so ubiquitous so quickly that it's hard to imagine a time before they existed.
In … (9 comments)

zillow: Zillow house price data vs NAR vs OFHEO vs Case-Schiller - 04/10/08 11:08 AM
Zillow has made a name for itself by becoming a major supplier of housing data to the media over the last two years. Our major point of differentiation versus the other guys is that the Zillow Housing Index (“Zindex”) measures the median value of ALL homes, not just those that have sold. This is a big deal, because changes in the TYPE of home that is selling can distort analyses. For example, imagine a grocery store that suddenly starts selling more candy bars and fewer steaks. If you just looked at the median sale price at the grocery story, it would … (10 comments)

zillow: Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Launches: FREE MORTGAGE LEADS - 04/03/08 03:33 AM
 

We've been hinting at it for a few weeks, but tonight I'm pleased to announce that Zillow Mortgage Marketplace has launched. Here's the 411:
How it works:
1. Borrowers fill out a form for free, entering their financial information but NOT their personal info. No name, email, phone # or Social Security #.
2. Borrower's loan request gets posted into the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace anonymously.
3. Lenders access free leads, choosing which loan request they want to respond to.
4. The borrower then decides which lender they want to reach out to, and contacts the lender via email or phone. In addition, borrowers can … (46 comments)

zillow: Come get remodeling ideas on Zillow - 03/19/08 04:48 PM

 
Tonight we launched a feature called Dueling Digs and I have to tell you that in my opinion this is one of the coolest features Zillow has ever built. It's basically "hot or not" for real estate. We built a fun game where you can choose which of two photos you like better. But more importantly you can now get great remodeling ideas by browsing top photos. I'm in the process of deciding how to remodel my bathroom and this is going to be incredibly helpful -- much better than doing things the old way: buying a lot of magazines and … (3 comments)

zillow: Online advertising dollars moving towards vertical sites - 03/11/08 02:12 AM
In my role as Zillow’s CFO, I’m frequently asked three questions about the viability of our revenue model:
1. Is there enough advertising money spent on the Internet such that Zillow can really remain free to consumers?
2. Is the housing downturn bad for Zillow?
3. How can a vertical site like Zillow compete with the bigger sites like the online portals (e.g., Yahoo, MSN, AOL)?
The first answer is a simple “yes”.
I’ve addressed the second question here. (Update: our traffic continues to spike – up 30-40% year over year depending upon the week --  as buyers, sellers and agents seek … (0 comments)

zillow: RE.net -- you rock - 03/10/08 03:58 PM
There have been some very public squabbles in the RE.net over the last few weeks and a lot of ink (and keystrokes) have been spilled about it. I’ve mostly ignored the back and forth, and I want to stay focused on the big picture: the real estate industry is incredibly lucky to have such an extraordinary blogosphere. I haven’t found anything like it in any other industry. We have several well-read corporate blogs (ZillowBlog, Redfin), several industry collaborations (Geekestate, Carnival of Real Estate), many city-specific blogs (Phoenix Real Estate Guy, Kris Berg's San Diego blog), several pundits (Bloodhound, 4Realz) and of … (0 comments)

zillow: Zillow's new mortgage product...coming soon - 03/06/08 03:45 PM
Zillow has brought information transparency to the real estate industry, and turned the real estate lead gen model on its head. We're getting ready to enter another ginormous industry, with a product that we think holds enormous appeal to consumers and lenders alike. 
We're a few weeks away from launching the new service, and I wanted to give my AR friends an opportunity to get in the door early. The new service will allow lenders free and unlimited access to borrowers. But we're taking great pains to verify lenders before letting them into the system. So if you want to be … (1 comments)

zillow: My day in DC - 02/27/08 01:02 PM

 
President Bush was giving a speech at the Marriott across the street from my hotel, so the whole block was locked down for about 30 minutes -- no one in or out. The presidential motorcade was unbelievable: about 30 black SUVs, 25 police cars, 10 police motorcycles, and 2 ambulances bringing up the rear. Unfortunately the best photo I could get was this one, but the scene was pretty unbelievable.
I was on air at Fox5, the local DC Fox station. Here's the video, if you're interested. 
(5 comments)

zillow: Looking at DC Area housing prices - 02/25/08 01:15 PM

 
I'm in Washington DC tonight for some partner and media meetings tomorrow. I'll be on Fox5 (WTTG) at about 7:45am EST for anyone in the Washington area.
I was looking over the Washington area housing stats in preparation for my interview tomorrow, so I thought I'd share some stats. Remember, all of our housing price data can be found here. Either play with the map, or click on the "Q4" button next to each city.
In the Washington area, single family home prices are down 8% year over year. The Zindex now stands at $435K.Condo prices are down 6% yoy, and the Zindex … (0 comments)

zillow: Virtual Sold Signs - 02/25/08 10:57 AM
Before I got into the real estate industry a few years ago, I used to wonder why “Sold” signs stayed up outside people’s houses for weeks. The answer is simple, in retrospect: the “Sold” sign is the best possible marketing for both agents in the transaction. Duh.
Well now Zillow has a way for you to leave your “Sold” sign up in front of ALL of your sides, forever. Virtually.
Zillow’s Virtual Sold Sign (“VSS”) program allows agents to go onto Zillow and claim their sides, for free. You can learn more here from Zillow Blog, and I encourage you to … (8 comments)

zillow: Realogy adding all 700,000 listings to Zillow - 02/20/08 01:13 AM

 
 
Sara from Zillow beat me to it, but I still wanted to share this huge news at Zillow today. The world's biggest real estate brokerage company has decided to syndicate all of their listings to Zillow for free.
So if you are a Coldwell Banker, ERA, Century 21 or Sotheby's Agent, your parent company is going to upload your listings to Zillow's 4-5 million users for you on a daily basis. (Learn more about putting your listings onto Zillow here.)
Zillow.com® Adds All Property Listings From Realogy's Residential Real Estate Brands
Parent company of CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA and Sotheby's International Realty will … (3 comments)

zillow: Listen to our Q4 Home Values Conference Call (Tues 2/12) - 02/11/08 04:16 AM
 
As you may know, we put out very extensive quarterly reports on home values. This quarter, for the first time, we’re also hosting a conference call where Dr. Stan Humphries (our chief Zestimator) will walk us through the latest housing price trends. The call is Tuesday February 12 @ 11am PST / 2pm EST. To participate (for free), dial 866-250-4375 and to download slides for the call, visit our press room shortly beforehand.
Talk to you tomorrow.
 
(1 comments)

zillow: Ardell's post about using Zillow to help set a listing price - 02/07/08 12:53 AM
Ardell has an interesting post about how she set a listing price, and she describes how Zillow helped her out. It is really exciting for me to posts like this because I've always felt that Zillow is a good tool for AGENTS as well as CONSUMERS but you don't frequently see agents as influential as Ardell come out and say so. … (9 comments)

zillow: Exciting week - 02/01/08 06:33 AM
A lot happened this week in Z-land. First, our listing count continues to grow as more and more brokerages add ther listings. We've gone from a few hundred thousand to almost 800K in just 6 weeks. Second, I was back east for business meetings and some media opportunities. I was on CNBC and Fox Business to discuss the housing climate. CNBC focused on the impact of the Fed's rate cuts on mortgage rates, and as one of my blog readers pointed out to me by email, I could have been more clear that it will take a while for the Fed … (4 comments)

zillow: Results of a recent Zillow survey of Realtors (400,000 visit Zillow each month!) - 01/15/08 03:26 PM
We’re dataholics at Zillow. And we do a ton of research on who uses our website. I’d like to share the results of a recent survey of Realtors who use Zillow.
- About 9% of our visitors say they are Realtors – that’s about 400,000 Realtors a month visiting our website. This likely makes Zillow the most visited site among Realtors on the Internet, larger than Realtor.com and any brokerage website.
- Only 13% of our visitors who are Realtors found out about Zillow from their colleagues. It seems that you’re a competitive bunch, not prone to share information among agents! … (9 comments)

zillow: Zillow comes out of "beta" - 01/10/08 06:28 AM
It was crazy here at Zillow HQ last night. After many months of hard work, we had a major product release which officially takes us out of our "beta" (or soft launch) period.
Here's the news: 
1. We added 27 million more Zestimates and now have 68% more Zestimates than we did at beta launch 2  years ago, bringing the total to 67 million Zestimates. New states with Zestimates include Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia and New Hampshire 2. We added 20 million other homes (with some information but not Zestimates) to our database,  33% … (6 comments)

 
Spencer Rascoff (Zillow)

Spencer Rascoff

Seattle, WA

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