Comments on: While I Was Sleeping – GodZillow Strikes

By: Louis Vuitton and the French Revolution | BloodhoundBlog: National real estate marketing and technology weblog | There's always something to howl about...

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:41:30 +0000

[...] the morning after the Zillow news, I had my own knee-jerk reaction. I subsequently took it upon myself to contact a preeminent real estate reporter for my local rag, [...]

By: Zillow redux: A post-diluvian retrospective . . . | BloodhoundBlog: National real estate marketing and technology weblog | There's always something to howl about...

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:40:35 +0000

[...] Kris Berg, Alpha Centauri to my own blonde goddess, offers this: Revolutionary, yes, but a national MLS system Zillow will never be, at least not without the cooperation of every local MLS in the country. This will ultimately leave Zillow as yet another home search tool that, while clearly beefier in content than its competitors (the 1000 pound GodZillow), will offer only a piece-meal from the homes-for-sale menu. I have written of my own information-overload-hell, and real estate consumers are no doubt feeling my pain. It is a full-time job to keep abreast of all of the places I could possibly gain on-line exposure for my listings. With the exception of the MLS, each opportunity can present the homebuyer with an only an incomplete piece of the pie. The on-line customer (most of the population now) can only be frustrated at best and confused at worst with the information fragmentation. [...]

By: The San Diego Home Blog » Blog Archive » Where Do You Like to Shop? Surf’s Up!

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 18:07:51 +0000

[...] Zillow: They recently rolled out their new homes for sale search functionality to much hoopla. Greg Swann recently had to ask, Where’s the beef?, noting that Trulia has over one-million listings populating their site. Now, this morning, Zillow had only 23 listings in my sample zip code, yet in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that 4 of these were actually my listings which are pending. You see, listing information here is manually entered and remains “live” until it is either manually deleted or it expires. For agents putting multiple listings on tens of sites, it is inevitable that homes in contract will be left on these sites until expiration. Listing capability is not restricted to agents and Brokers, of course, which is one potential plus, so non-MLS properties will appear here. Although we are in the early days of Zillow as a homes-for-sale search tool, the new functionality has been somewhat underwhelming so far. [...]

By: Kris Berg

Kris Berg — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:54:14 +0000

Vince, Always nice when someone agrees with me (and getting rarer). I think the point most consumers have been taking issue with here is our value and long-term survivability as agents in an IT world. Generally, however, I suspect these comments are coming from people who don’t see our value now. I do not think we will ever see a day when the “parallels” some like to draw to Amazon, ebay, etc. will hold water for real estate.

By: Vince Talerico

Vince Talerico — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:41:15 +0000

Kris, I completely agree with local mls boards moving in that direction. However, many mls systems are so incredibly far behind these constant changing technological advances, that I believe they will always remain in this position. As GodZillo strikes, many other ideas are sparking and evolving the “at my fingertips” informational archives. Again, agreeing with you 100%…realtors will remain as important as the rest of the big name professionals. There is almost too much information to comprehend these days and a personal touch is always top priority!

By: Kris Berg

Kris Berg — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:06:12 +0000

Todd, I think it will eventually go that direction (if the Boards are smart). The big companies (take Prudential) are already feeding their listings to the sites you mention.

Shadash, buying a Chia Pet on ebay is quite different from buying a home. More complex, many more variables in the product, much more personal. Agents are much more than “middlemen”, and I believe there will always be a place for agents in the transaction. No argument, however, that our role will evolve and may eventually be quite different than at current.

John, Huh?

By: John Lockwood

John Lockwood — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:20:16 +0000

So roll over and die is it now, and we don’t get to argue against that?

Dang.

By: Todd Tarson

Todd Tarson — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:17:21 +0000

Kris… what MLS has to do is partner with not only zillow, but the Googles, Trulia’s, and the others. This way the info is consistent anywhere a future client may be looking. Let the outside interests battle it out for the consumer… we shouldn’t be in that war.

Now I realize that there is a snowmans chance in the Gobi desert of this happening, but I’ll at least be able to tell the Members that I was right.

By: shadash

shadash — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 22:52:38 +0000

What MLS doesn’t understand is that once zillow takes the web over they’ll be the one everyone goes to. Much like how Yahoo, Google, or MSN are the main portals people use. Once Zillow is established online that’s the company people will go to.

Even if MLS was to get everyone together and try putting listings online zillow will already have the ball rolling allowing them take over online markets faster.

Here’s what you’ll start seeing Zillow do

1. They’ll start licensing out “Zestimate” technology to smaller real estate online websites.
2. They’ll license out the zillow researched price the house originally sold for. (already doing this for ziprealty)

Zillow is positioning itself as the online “guru” of real estate. As people start seeing zillow “zestimates” and other information integrated in smaller websites It won’t take much for them to go to Zillow directly instead of working with the middleman. (this is what ebay did)

By: Kris Berg

Kris Berg — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:30:16 +0000

Shadash,

Absolutely, one-hundred percent on target. The problem is it will take a lot more than little ol’ me embracing change. The industry as a whole has to, and good luck with that happening (at least quickly).