April 06, 2007: Web site builds a community of real estate consumers and vendors

Zillow.com, the national Realty.bot growing out of the popular automated home valuation service, released a new version of its popular web-based software Tuesday night. The system's new functionality comes in three broad categories:
  • Any user of the system -- not just homeowners or their real estate agents -- will be able to report that a particular home is for sale and at what price. Only owners and/or listing agents will be able to create more elaborate listings for homes for sale.
  • Any user of the site will be able to ask or answer a specific question about a home, whether or not it is listed for sale. The questions and answers will be stored with the record for that home, and each user's questions, answers and Zillow Wiki contributions will be recorded on that user's personal profile page on the system.
  • Agents or other users wishing to promote either themselves or their homes listed for sale will be able to do so through a new "EZ Ads" system. The ads will be sold by the zip-code at a cost of one-penny per impression.
"With this release, Zillow becomes a community," said David Gibbons, the company's Director of Community Relations. Zillow's home value "Zestimates" have been very popular with home sellers. Zillow.com is giving buyers and Realtors incentives to join its community.

Zillow wants agents to submit at least limited-data listings, which will in turn bring it buyers, which will in turn reward sellers and listing agents for inputting full-data listings and other information, which will in turn provide a stickier and more satisfying experience for buyers. By giving agents credit for their contributions to Zillow's content database, agents have the incentive to drive the process.

Taken together, Zillow is creating a community in the sense of a magazine: A target-marketed community of content consumers who are also interested in products and services conjoined with a community of vendors of those products and services. Zillow goes most magazines one better by giving the vendors the incentive to create much of the content at their own expense.

Greg Swann is the designated broker for BloodhoundRealty.com, a full-service Metropolitan Phoenix real estate brokerage. This article originally appeared in the West Valley regional sections of the Arizona Republic.

Spread the word: Click here for a printer-ready version of this column.

Or: Steal this book: I've written over 200 of these real estate columns. They are consistently one of the most popular features on our blogs. Many of them are dated and/or entirely Phoenixocentric. But many others are timeless and generic. If you want to use any of my columns on your weblog or web site, feel free. Three rules: Don't change my text, credit me as the author and give me a link back to http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/ with appropriate anchor text. Something like this, perhaps:

<a href="http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/" target="_blank">
Phoenix Realtor Greg Swann</a> suggested I share this with you:
Am I link-baiting? You bet. The quid pro quo is free content for your site that pulls eyeballs and excites interest.

 
About BloodhoundRealty.com: Who we are and how we work