Not so much, despite a prank posting on the realty.bot’s forums:
Zillow will be shut down on Nov 2nd
Their revenue stream is in concert with the real estate market. They simply ran out of money.
Hence no price updates for over a month.
The Cluetrain runs on Saturdays in Seattle, so David Gibbons rushed in to quash the rumor (once I had asked for a comment, I should add):
OK, OK – Zillow is not shutting down.
Quite the contrary. I’m sorry that Zestimate updates are delayed – there’s a sticky post in the Zillow forum that explains this further. The short story is that we’re preparing for a massive update to Zestimates and data – and have had to freeze site data while that project is ongoing. I understand that it’s frustrating and ask for your patience for a little while longer.
Financially, the company is very healthy – but thanks for your concern. Yep, Homer; we did just raise a 3rd round of venture Capital – $30M – for a total of $89M to date. Ad sales at Zillow are better than expected – please remember to support our advertisers!
New data will be on the site shortly – and much more cool stuff will launch over the next 3 months. We’re not going anywhere.
The rumor was obvious bunk, but it’s cool that it shook some news loose from the Zillowtree.
Technorati Tags: disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, Zillow.com
Scottsdale az real estate says:
You really had me going there! I didn’t think it possible Zillow could go under.
October 20, 2007 — 3:38 pm
Benn says:
haha great find.
October 20, 2007 — 4:55 pm
rob aubrey says:
Makes you wonder who would spend $89 Million on how NOT to amke a profit. I would have shown them for let’s say $15-20 Million.
October 20, 2007 — 6:04 pm
David G from Zillow.com says:
I’m still checking into it but I think it was Joel Burslem that started that thread 😉
Thanks again for the heads up Greg.
October 20, 2007 — 6:14 pm
Dave Barnes says:
Gosh, I hope they are not referring to adverts from: doubleclick and adtmt. Because I have those blocked with Adblock Plus on my Firefox browser.
Doesn’t everyone use Firefox and ABP?
October 20, 2007 — 8:23 pm
Eric says:
Dave, if they don’t – everyone should 🙂
October 22, 2007 — 12:49 pm
Ken Smith says:
$89 Million raised, wonder how much is left?
October 23, 2007 — 1:38 pm