I attended the Seattle REBar event yesterday, and listened to Spencer Rascoff of Zillow talk about why real estate agents should put their listings on Zillow. I agree it makes sense, and here are the main reasons.
1. They are a top 1 or 2 real estate site now with OVER 8 million unique visitors and it is growing over 70% year over year – you will never get that many people to your site. A study by CAR showed that 55% of California Sellers use Zillow.
2. About 2/3rds of buyers are on Zillow to buy/sell NOW.
3. Can post your listings for free – there are broker feeds (they suggest this), agent manual or tour companies can post (we will be adding this soon). Virtual tour links come through the feeds if the process is set up correctly
4. Zillow is mobile. Their iPhone application has been downloaded over 700,000 times, by far the most popular application in any category. On weekends, 20% of Zillow’s traffic comes from iPhone users – 20%! FloorPlanOnline just launched a multi-device, mobile optimized site…so now basic content can be seen on virtually any mobile device. So upload your listings and include the foorplanonline.com link.
5. Use the Zestimates as a tool to show your real estate expertise. Zillow admits and clearly publishes the fact that the Zestimate is just an estimate…and with better data it can get better. This is where you can use your expertise as a Realtor to explain why you would price a home or why the Zestimate is not correct. Also, when you list a house for sale on Zillow, the Zestimate falls to the bottom and what is most visible on the map and property details is the listing price.
PS. Join their Advice forums and be the local expert for consumers in your area. Just watch the hard sell, as people want information, not to be inundated with hard sales pushes.
-Kris Cone, FloorPlanOnline.com
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