My Family and Zillow.

Anyone that is in the real estate industry or has looked for homes on-line recently certainly has heard of Zillow.  For those of you that are not familiar, Zillow, a Seattle based Internet home search company, offers quick over the net "Zestimates" that will give consumers a quick glance as to what their estimated property value is.

Zillow has been in many heated debates among Realtors that feel their Zestimates are not as accurate as they should be.  Some agents tell their horror stories about deals that have gone bad because of a buyer and/or seller that has gone in and looked at an estimate and received an inaccurate value, which has prompted them to back out of a transaction.

I read blog a while back from another Realtor that had some great points on why we should use Zillow's services.  She had a great post that basically said "We can jump on board with the moving technology or we can sit around and pout about it".  I really wish I could find that blog post because I would certainly provide a link back to it and give her the credit that's due.

That said, even after reading her blog, I wasn't completely on the band wagon at that point.  There are so many "free" sites out there that we post our listings to that it's hard to keep track of it all.  In addition, I'm not too sure that we, as Realtors, are making the right decisions by posting our inventory all over the place.  There are so many fellow real estate agents that are scared to death that the Realtor will be something of the past yet they are the ones that are leading the charge.  Worried about their careers, they run out and post their listings on all these "free" sites.  Granted, they are getting more exposure for their listing but on the same hand, by posting to all these sites, they are cutting themselves right out of the picture eventually leading to their demise.

I read today about a fellow RE/MAX office, RE/MAX Allegiance, which is a huge office that covers Virginia, Maryland, and DC, has signed a contract with Zillow to have all of their listings on a direct feed to the Zillow site......

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......... and so it begins.

Is it possible that Zillow will take down the almighty Realtor.com?  Could being a "featured agent" with my "featured listings" have more weight on Zillow than it does on good ole' Realtor.com?  When a home buyer starts to look for their new place on-line, is Zillow going to be their first stop?  I'll tell you this much, Zillow has done an incredible job stirring up the real estate pot and I'm not sure I can sit around and watch this technology pass me by any longer.