A day later, I think it’s all over but the shouting. There have been a small few objections, some earnest, some spurious, but, in the end, none of it matters. Zillow 5 is here, and it isn’t going away. Brian Brady and I have talked about how you might take advantage of the new functionality in Zillow. But take advantage or don’t, Zillow 5 is here.
Last night I explicitly addressed the conjecture that publicizing a home for sale is, colorably, advertising. I argue that it’s a material fact, not a solicitation to buy. But even if MLS systems or the NAR should rule otherwise, this would impact only Realtors. Anyone else could report these facts, picking them off of any one of dozens of Realtors’ IDX systems — to put exactly the right point on the candor behind the complaints. When little vendors see the sole of a big boot right overhead, we expect them to shriek. But their caviling will come to nothing. Zillow 5 is here.
In the same way, worrying about bad behavior that might but so far has not happened seems unlikely to move Zillow.com off its position. There may well be acts of malice, and Zillow will have to respond in a quick and measured way or risk losing all the decent people it is trying to attract. If it fails at this, it fails, but I doubt it’s going to quit the arena in response to so-far unfounded worries. Zillow 5 is here.
If there is a peril to feared from Zillow.com, it is here: This company has gone from a world-shaking AVM to a radical listings platform to a national residential real estate marketplace in fourteen months. This last round of revisions — adding many new pages and vast new capacity — took four months. If this advertising play does not pay off, could it turn itself into a national semi-automated real estate brokerage? You bet. In six months at the outside.
Will that happen? Hide and watch. Would it be a moral wrong if it did? We know exactly what we say to the crybaby union men who insist that they have a moral right to mis-manufacture shoes or garments or vehicles at $42.50 an hour. As we are honest, we should be prepared for the day when we must say the same things to ourselves. When the meteor strikes, when the big boot drops, the dinosaurs are doomed no matter how passionate their demagogues.
But: Zillow 5 is here. This is Brian Brady, hacking away like St. Francis Xavier among the heathens:
Let me suggest something, though. Sometimes it pays to be a bit of a maverick.
If I spend $200 a month, I’m going to get 10,000 impressions on two distinct zip codes: Del Mar and Solana Beach, CA. Let’s say that there is 10-15 new listings a day in those zip codes and it takes 10 hours a week in labor to add those listings to Zillow. Add another $400 for labor costs and I’m in the game as a dominant player for $600/month. If those two zip codes close 80 transactions monthly, is it conceivable that I can get initial contact for 4-5 of them?
A $800,000 price point is not unreasonable for this market. Would you pay $600 for a better than average shot at $2,000,000 in closed loan volume within 3-4 miles of your home while developing a valuable Realtor relationship?
I peed on 24 trees today, as it were. I reported on the sale price of two dozen homes. I don’t believe this is a violation of MLS rules or the Code of Ethics, but I am a Designated Broker and I am very well versed in the laws and rules of real estate practice in Arizona. If I am found to be in violation, I will report on any proceedings in detail.
But that’s for the future, as is anything Zillow.com might or might not do. Whatever the future may hold is unknown. But there is opportunity right now in Zillow 5 for industrious mammals — small, fleet and warm-blooded. If you add value to Zillow’s brand, Zillow will add value to your brand. You can pay to promote yourself if you like, but you don’t have to. And, as Brian says, if you promote yourself wisely and well, the cost per conversion could be next to nothing.
Zillow 5 is here, and if you think it’s your enemy, you should watch you back around your putative friends.
Morgan Brown says:
Brian Brady is a genius.
I think that many mortgage lenders have a more accepting view of these types of developments because the mortgage origination process has already been fairly well deconstructed with the advent of lead-providers on the internet (lowermybills.com, lendingtree.com, etc.) where mortgage companies are pitted against each other in a bloody battle for the customer.
Anyone bemoaning the fact of Zillow’s brash attempts to democratize home and neighborhood information is just holding on too tight. For example, the post on Rain City guide casts Realtors in a bad light. Quotes such as “But that Frink guy thinking he’s going to let the neighbors and bubble people loose as “reporters” to help the general public get their hands on the info trapped in the heads of local experts. That is just too funny for words.” are the exact reason why Zillow is happening.
What I think is “funny” is that Realtors would actively slight the people in the community they are trying to serve by referring to them as too unsophisticated to contribute meaningfully to the dialogue about the market that they live in. People love to be told their opinion doesn’t count. Sure there will be extreme viewpoints, but many people think the Realtor/Pollyanna view is extreme as well. I would welcome the local debate from all comers; it will give the confident Realtors a chance to distinguish themselves as a strong signal in a noisy environment. Dismissing discourse as a useless in an attempt “to tap the minds of local experts” is too haughty for my tastes. I’d love to hear from 5 people in a neighborhood how they think the schools are – because their kids go there – not off of some board of education web site.
Zillow could be the meteor, or it could be a curiosity, but either way, the medium is here, it can be seized or bemoaned, but it cannot be denied.
April 4, 2007 — 10:47 pm
Brian Brady says:
>I peed on 24 trees today, as it were.
and i called myself “FQ Story’s Lender” for a week via EZ Ads in my typical adolescent, mischievous behavior
>But there is opportunity right now in Zillow 5 for industrious mammals — small, fleet and warm-blooded
and you can hire those industrious and technologically adept teenagers to mark your trees. An hour from them costs about as much as an EZ ad
This is the post that pulls it all together, Greg. Zillow is here and here to stay. Now lets pray that they remain a “channel” and not a market participant.
April 5, 2007 — 12:51 am
Brian Brady says:
>I’d love to hear from 5 people in a neighborhood how they think the schools are – because their kids go there – not off of some board of education web site
you mistrust the CA education cartel, too?
The possibilities are limitless if done correctly. I had a further thought. Anoint yourself the neighborhood moderator. If you speak with authority, commenters will recognize it. Who would challenge you at this early juncture?
April 5, 2007 — 12:55 am
Michael Wurzer says:
Greg, I don’t know if your “little vendor” comment was aimed at FBS or not, but we do hold that badge as an honor so I’ll respond. I didn’t hear myself shriek upon reading Zillow’s news. In fact, I distinctly heard a yawn. This is a yawner to me, as an MLS software vendor, for all the reasons you have illuminated a few times. Zillow themselves have said they are a media company and an MLS system is more than that. In fact, I suggested that Zillow should just quit beating around the bush and ask for the listings or possibly buy or merge with Trulia. Or, if what you say is true, that “Anyone else could report these facts, picking them off of any one of dozens of Realtors’ IDX systems”, then why doesn’t Zillow (who is “anyone else”) simply report the listings for sale themselves? Why are they resorting to convoluted doublethink? Zillow clearly needs the listings to improve the traffic to their site, but, the advertising of list prices and possibly bedrooms and bathrooms doesn’t come close to touching the search power of an MLS system. I wasn’t shrieking before and I’m not now. I did get a good night’s sleep last night, though.
April 5, 2007 — 4:47 am
Michael Wurzer says:
For further clarification on my perspective, if I were an agent, I’d definitely consider posting on Zillow, just like I’d be working the many other web 2.0 sites. As you and Brian point out, they provide a good bang for the buck. But I think the next great thing is going to be a meta-poster system where agents can blog post to a single site and have their posts syndicated automatically to Active Rain, Point2, Zillow, InmanWiki, Coldwell Banker Blog, Localism, their own personal blog, and probably a dozen others I haven’t seen yet. There has to be big money there, don’t you think? I thought the MLS industry was challenging with so many tightly focused local systems, but this new model of dozens of national sites all covering the same territory takes that challenge to a whole new level. That’s the ticket for the MLS, I think, to create a local blogging platform that syndicates the blog posts to all the national media companies to drive traffic back to the listings. Listings. The discussion always seems to come back around to the pesky little buggers.
April 5, 2007 — 5:03 am
Athol Kay says:
I certainly think if you just sat down with the sunday paper and did data entry on the houses listed in the paper it’s all public information.
Would you be liable to keep the prices updated? Do you have to remove the flag of “for sale” once it is sold/under deposit?
April 5, 2007 — 6:16 pm
MLS-2.com says:
Zillow 5 is here to stay, unlike the previous “Goliaths” feared in turn by the real estate community (AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, even GOOGLE). Zillow is doing it different, and that confuses some. But that’s precisely why the outcome will be different this time. Watch & learn.
April 6, 2007 — 1:13 pm