Today I’d like to briefly discuss a website that has truly been a game-changer in real estate in the past decade or so: Zillow. Zillow has, in many ways, usurped a certain role that real estate agents have traditionally represented to potential Sellers. It provides a wealth of knowledge at anyone’s fingertips, from neighborhood statistics to school district info to potential property values. Unfortunately, this information is often taken as the gospel when it is in fact more of a general starting point. For example, the suggested home valuations (or “Zestimates,” as it were) are based on an algorithm which, while it has merit, pales in comparison in terms of accuracy to a customized CMA prepared by a real estate professional familiar with the area and its recent activity.
Therefore, an over-reliance on Zillow can create moments where a potential Seller’s conception of what a property is worth is out of line with reality, which can in turn cause some turmoil in listing presentations. In addition, other automated elements of the site can cause issues; for example, I’ve seen instances where, due to an error in the system Zillow uses to pull school information, the listing for a property showed it as being within the wrong school districts, with no way of changing it manually. Things like this represent a significant downside to the service.
Having said all that, the upside of Zillow BY FAR mitigates these pitfalls. It represents an incredible opportunity for agents to gain new business. It is a clean, visually-appealing site that is simple to understand and provides a tremendous platform for agents to build their business. It provides an easy to understand resource for people in search of an agent which informs them which agents have sold what properties, and what the feedback from their clients has been.
Which brings me to my next point. Zillow reviews are massively important to any agent trying to grow their business. As you can imagine, that would include me! Therefore, before I end here today, I’d like to please ask you all for a favor. If I have worked with you and helped you in the past, please consider taking a moment to leave me a brief review on Zillow to let people know about my services. This would be an incredible boost to my business, and I would appreciate it more than you can imagine. The link you can follow is below:
http://www.zillow.com/profile/Elena-Free-Staging/
Thank you so much in advance for your help with this!
Anyway, those are my thoughts on Zillow: a flawed but powerful tool, brimming with opportunity. But Zillow isn’t the only website that is crucial to the modern day real estate agent. Please join the conversation and let us know: what do you think about Zillow? Next time, I’ll get into one of the other heavy hitters that I’m sure you’re quite familiar with!
TO BE CONTINUED…