Heard of Zillow.com yet? You will.

Posted by urbandigs

Tue Jan 17th, 2006 09:20 AM

A: As I browse my favorite real estate weblog, Curbed.com, I noticed this link in their Monday PM Linkage about an article posted on Hot Property today about Zillow.com; a new entity that is coming.

Here is what I do know about Zillow:

What is Zillow? A Real Estate Website startup (Not a brokerage!)

Who founded Zillow? Rich Barton. You know him, he founded a little company called Expedia.com in the 1990's. Well, that guy!

Is it going to be a MLS system? No. Actually, according to the Hot Property article:

Zillow won't be some kind of national Multiple Listing Service of homes for sale. In fact, Barton said he thinks anyone trying to create such a list is wasting time. The reason: "The Web is the national MLS already. It's happened. You're arguing over yesterday's news."

How will it make money? Advertising. It is mentioned that the model will be designed so that real estate agents and brokers will be the target customer for placing ads. Perhaps a pay-per-content system similar to that of craigslist where brokers post ads for properties. Sure its free at first, but once the site gets going, they'll be a posting fee? Who knows. The site is still months away from launching.

Will there be reviews? Yes. It seems Rich Barton is huge on user feedback and that this site will incorporate some type of 'REVIEWS' feature in it. One thing that a 'feedback' model does offer is a barrier to entry. If Zillow is successful and this catches on and garners a ton of public opinion, it could be huge for the startup. Another quote from the article states:
Lots of its information will come from users of the site--a model that has been proven highly successful by real estate blogs like curbed.com.

Is the company funded? OH YES! Zillow currently has 75 employees working, mostly engineers, and has raised $32M so far. Read the article!

It seems to me that Zillow will most likely be some sort of combination between NY Times property search, Craigslist model of using brokers as target customers, and Ebay system of feedback and self governance for users to review buildings, listings and agents. Well this seems the most likely to me anyway.

So how will brokers respond to this? Well, what can we do? In my humble opinion, I think there are still plenty of buyers out there who appreciate the hands on advice and services that real estate agents offer on both sides of the transaction.

For buyers, its not just about finding the property that fits the clients needs, but evaluting its true market value, negotiating the best price, handling the packages for the board, and co-ordinating the entire transaction until closing. For sellers, its taking emotion out of the deal, pre-qualifying the buyers, and providing mass exposure in proven marketing channels to get the highest and best offer possible.

But thats just me. I certainly think Zillow will be big. It has the perfect mix of management, connections, funds, and timing to make some sort of impact. The question that remains unanswered is, 'What will it be'?

Add a comment

42 comments

CAPTCHA Image