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Zillow to Realtors: Pay Up or We'll Put Any Price We Want on Your Listing

Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX United Real Estate

January 28, 2010 04:32 AM

About a month ago or so (it was recent but I can't remember exactly when), Zillow sent me a nice e-mail telling me that I can continue to manually update my listings on Zillow for a nominal fee (about $10, as I recall) and it would be good for six months. Well, I was none to pleased about this and mentioned it on a couple of blogs and Twitter. Zillow, of course, came back with the response that this was really not such a big deal and, besides, the listing data will still be syndicated by MLS and other syndicators and appear on Zillow for free.

OK. Fine. I'm good with free.

Fast Forward to Today

I got an e-mail on Tuesday from Zillow directing me to a bunch of videos about how Zillow works and yadda, yadda, yadda. One of the videos was entitled: "What do I do with this (!@#$%&*) Zestimate?" That was a pretty enticing title so I went for a peek. One of the things that struck me was that when a house is actually listed for sale (as opposed to the one next door which isn't listed), Zillow says they will put the actual list price prominently and first while moving the Zestimate farther down the page. I guess the deal is that they'll respect the Realtor's list price (or the FSBO list price, I guess) and move the Zestimate down a bit without, of course, getting rid of it completely.

So I went and took a look at a home that I currently have listed, is currently on the market and is eagerly awaiting a buyer. (here's the link). Sure enough, the Zillow Zestimate is prominently displayed at the very top of the page so that it is the first thing anyone will see if they happen to look at this particular listing. Now, I'm sure that real estate professional are not using Zillow to look for homes for their buyer clients or for valuation purpose. Consumers. Potential home buyers are using the site and that's what Zillow wants.

What's The Problem?

The house is actually listed for far less than the Zillow Zestimate with feedback from fellow Realtors that have viewed the home that it is still "overpriced". (here is the link to the real deal) Now, I've already overcome this with the Seller. My issue is with any potential buyer that might be using Zillow and decide "Whoa! Out of my price range!" or "That's overpriced." or whatever and decide to pass on it.

It turns out that if I don't pay Zillow their $10 or whatever it is for the listing, I have to deal with the Zillow Zestimate at the top of the listing -- a real listing with a real list price!

Why does Zillow blackmail Realtors like this? Because they can. You would think that there would be some law (Truth in Advertising??) or some kind of consumer protection but evidently not.

I'm sure Zillow's lawyers have looked at this up one side and down the other. That's not the point. The point is that Zillow is misleading the public at the expense of home sellers and, really, home buyers, too, by distributing this wildly inaccurate data on the Web. Unless I pay my $10 to correct it.

End of rant.

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Sara Bonert

Zillow - Atlanta, GA

Real Estate Internet Marketing

Ken --

First to be clear - "Zillow says they will put the actual list price prominently and first while moving the Zestimate farther down the page" - we have to know that is it for sale. Obviously if we haven't received Sales Price data, we wouldn't know to replace the Zestimate in the top bar with any other number. All you would have to do is send us the listing through a feed (which is free), or do the manual entry you refer to in your first paragraph - and exactly what is described in the video would happen. The Sales Price would show up in search results, the Sale Price would show up at the top of the property, and the Zestimate would fall down the page.

Also, any Homeowner in the country is welcome to claim their home and create a 'My Estimate" and choose whether or not they would like to make this estimate public. This way they can tell people about any upgrades they've done, or in your case, state that they think their home is less than the Zestimate.

You always have the option of sending us your listing data for free if you'd like - as about 98% of the listings on the site do today.

Jan 28, 2010 05:11 AM

Cindy Jones

Integrity Real Estate Group - Woodbridge, VA

Pentagon, Fort Belvoir & Quantico Real Estate News

If I read this correctly your listing was pulled via syndication and according to Sara your list price should be showing and not the zestimate.

Per Sara's statement "we have to know its for sale"- if it is pulled from syndication why would Zillow not know it was for sale? I'm sure there is an answer but I can see why a zestimate price of $370K when the house is listed for $314K would be frustrating.

Jan 28, 2010 07:54 AM

Ken Montville

RE/MAX United Real Estate - College Park, MD

The MD Suburbs of DC

Sara (and Cindy) -- The fact is that this particular listing was pulled from syndication from somewhere because it has my exact wording in the "home description" part of the Zillow listing is everywhere else, too -- MRIS, Postlets, RealBird, Realtor.com and more. I actually manually place it and insert descriptive text anywhere I can (for free). So Zillow got that listing from somewhere and my guess is that since I didn't pay for it they get to put their Zestimate front and center.

So, how does Zillow know it's for sale? Get $10 from the listing agent. If Zillow doesn't know a property is for sale from it's own vast data mining and accuracy checking (see video) than how can Zillow claim any credibility at all?

Jan 28, 2010 09:00 AM

Richard Glick

Kingsway Realty - Lancaster, PA

Maybe if a potential buyer sees your listing and sees the zestimate, than looks at the actual asking price they may think what a great deal and buy it!....who knows though

Jan 28, 2010 09:15 AM

Ken Montville

RE/MAX United Real Estate - College Park, MD

The MD Suburbs of DC

Richard - that would be the optimal situation. However, I can't find the list price anywhere on the Zillow listing so there is no way to compare unless they looked elsewhere.

Jan 28, 2010 09:36 AM

Dr. Stacey-Ann Baugh

Century 21 New Millennium - Upper Marlboro, MD

A doctor who makes house calls.

It doesn't even look like its for sale on zillow but yet it has your description. That does seem strange.

Jan 28, 2010 01:06 PM

Robert McArtor

RE/MAX Components - Fallston Maryland - Bel Air, MD

Top Listing Agent for Baltimore and Harford County

I don't understand it, I agree with Stacey-Ann - it doesn't even look like its for sale.

Jan 28, 2010 01:38 PM

Ken Montville

RE/MAX United Real Estate - College Park, MD

The MD Suburbs of DC

Stacey and Robert - It is definitely for sale and definitely listed. It's in MRIS and everywhere else I can think to put it. Zillow shows it like it does because I haven't paid them $10 for the manual input.

Jan 28, 2010 11:40 PM

Anonymous

Realtor

Hi Ken,

Your house does not even look like it is for sale on Zillow. Like you said, how did they get your home description paragraph without also getting the asking price? Or the basic fact that it is "for sale"?

Doesn't Zillow get updates from their feeds to "overwrite" this information eventually, and get the sale price?

Zillow does have problems like this. I tell clients that to their credit, Zillow is fairly transparent and honest about the usefulness of their Zestimate. I tell them that it isn't so much that the Zestimate gets you "in the ballpark" of an actually useful valuation, as it gets you "in a massive complex with multiple ballparks", and could be even a few "ballparks" away.

Sara appears to be a nice person, but is wrong about the logistics of how this entry should be fixed. It isn't about YOU manually changing anything-- what are Realtors supposed to do, spend all day fixing errors on Zillow?-- and it definitely isn't about the homeowners logging on and and doing anything. It is about Zillow shoring things up with whatever feed they pulled your home description paragraph from.

I watched Sara's video. She is fairly honest about the Zestimate in the video. She used the word "fun" one time in the video. That is the word I would use as well. It is sort of like a toy. And Sara is definitely a pleasant spokesperson for the "guys behind the curtain" who are feeding her the rationalizations and excuses.

I also sincerely applaud their link at the very bottom of the page that shows the "Data Coverage and Zestimate^® Accuracy" page.

That is honestly to their credit, although I wonder how many people ever find that link? ;-) I looked up my city. Zillow's Zestimate was "within 10% of the actual sale price" about 54% of the time. That means that about half of the time they are within $20,000 on a $200,000 house. And for that they gave themselves a 4-star "Best Zestimate Rating". Uh.... okay.

Good luck with this listing, Ken!

Jan 29, 2010 12:41 AM

Ken Montville

RE/MAX United Real Estate - College Park, MD

The MD Suburbs of DC

Realtor - Thanks for leaving such a detailed comment. What really irritates me is something underlying your fourth paragraph about Realtors fixing errors. Realtors obtain the listing and input it into the MLS in order to best serve their Seller clients. Zillow than data mines the information, re-packages it, slaps on their Zestimate and then wants the Realtor another $10 to show it with correct data on their site. If Zillow were some not-for-profit trying to do us a favor, that would be one thing. Howver, it sells adverstising, upgraded marketing packages, etc. Now they want (and will extract) another $10 per listing from the same Realtors who provided the data/listing in the firs place.

It's the old line about taking your watch to tell you what time it is.

Jan 29, 2010 07:48 AM

Anonymous

Realtor

I am with you, Ken.

I realize that real estate agents are a generally gullible lot; how else to explain all of the coaches, motivational speakers, systems gurus and "social media" experts that are making a living at seminars all across the country.

But even given all of that, I think Zillow is a tad ambitious if they are going to try to talk agents into giving them all of their data- for free- and then logging on all of the time to do their fact checking for them after they have gone out and skimmed data from 'who knows where'. What a business model! If I thought I might be able to talk 20,000 people into working for me- for free- I might give it a try, as well!

As it stands, their site is more "fun toy", or "time killer sitting in an airport", than anything else. I just can't trust anything on there. Especially the "Zestimates". Those are just kinda cute.

All of these sites like this are a dime a dozen.

Jan 29, 2010 04:55 PM

#11

Jean-Paul Peron

The Outer Banks Real Estate Copmpany - Corolla, NC

Carova Beach - Living & Working in 4-Wheel Drive

Zolow is a pain in the butt.

My problem with them is that my listings get placed in there multiple times.

Here's an example http://www.zillow.com/homes/2116-sandfiddler-rd.-27927_rb/

Jan 30, 2010 11:46 PM

Robin Rogers

Robin Rogers, Silverbridge Realty, San Antonio, Texas - San Antonio, TX

CRS, TRC, MRP - Real Estate Investment Adviser

I've noticed my listings are always "overpriced" according to Zillow. Whatever. I put them on there anyway just to increase their exposure. Hopefully buyers will learn to take Zestimates with a boulder of salt.

Feb 10, 2010 12:17 PM

Ken Montville

RE/MAX United Real Estate - College Park, MD

The MD Suburbs of DC

Realtor - I only wish the home buyer and home seller public would look at Zillow as a fun toy instead of Gospel.

Jean-Paul - So, you're telling me that wildly inaccurate Zestimates aren't the only problem? :-)

Robin - It's true exposure of listings is a good thing. It makes it a whole lot easier if the listing information is accurate.

Feb 11, 2010 02:44 AM

Sara Bonert

Zillow - Atlanta, GA

Real Estate Internet Marketing

Hey all - I must have forgotten to click to be notified of new comments, so sorry about the lack of response here!

Before responding I went back and reread everything and again clicked on the link provided in the original post to the property in question.

Since my last comment, it looks like the property has indeed posted to the site (maybe it just needed another day or two to make it to the site?). So you'll see the For Sale price posted at the top of the page, and the Zestimate demoted further down. Also, as the video says, when you do a search for the address or zip, only the For Sale price shows up on the map and search page.

You asked how you would know the source of the data when it is syndicated to the site. In small gray text at the bottom of the page note - "Some information on page provided by RealBird". (fwiw - in a few months we are redesigning this area of the page for this to be more obvious, as I know it is important info for Realtors to know)

With regards to 'fact checking', another point to note - Say public records says that a home is a 2 bedroom. Then your listings comes to us and you say that it is a 4 bedroom. The Realtor data feed will override the public record info when it comes to calculating the Zestimate (which gets recalculated 3 times a week). And both sets of data are published to the site for the user to see. So you shouldn't have to fact check anything- it all happens in an automated fashion.

Feb 17, 2010 12:39 AM

Anonymous

Recall that when Zillow was launched, the buzz was that they were going to put Realtors out of business. Now they want us to pay them to increase their revenues. They use our content, for free, and want us to pay for the priveledge? Business model failure. PLEASE AGENTS, DON'T DO IT.

May 03, 2010 11:47 AM

#16

Anonymous

Shirley Mort

I joined Zillow almost a year ago and was very happy in the beginning and am classified as a Premier Agent. True I have gotten business from Zillow but what bothers me is other Realtors are shown with their pictures next to mine and they pay nothing??? Zillow's excuse is well someone has to go to another page to get their phone numbers. Also, when someone else joins and buys a certain zip code or a percentage of one they are shown just as much as I am on all zip codes. Where is the fairness in this? Call and complain and you are told anything to get you off the line. My days with Zillow are numbered!

Feb 02, 2012 02:30 PM

#17

Brad Andersohn

Executive Director of Education at eXp Realty - Fairfield, CA

ActiveBrad - 707.646.1876

Hi Shirley - Brad from Zillow here. I'm not too sure about the details of your comment above but I would most certainly love to be able to help. I have only been with Zillow since September of last year but I know that the last thing on earth they would do is say anything just to get you off the phone.

My phone and door are open to you and if I can help clear up any concerns or answer any questions that you have, I'd be more than happy to spend that time with you. Maybe even explain and also show you how this all works? I think there may be some misunderstanding and I'd love if I could at least provide you a personal and guided walk-thru allowing you to ask or get as many answers to as many questions that you may have.

You can reach me anytime by just clicking on my name in the lower left corner of this comment. Feel free to call, email, or text message me if you like. I'm sorry if your experience with anyone from our company was less than an exceptional customer experience and I will do all I can to make it better. Thanks.

Feb 02, 2012 05:06 PM

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