Zillow. Everybody knows it. Some love it. Some hate it. Regardless
of how you feel, people are talking about it. 178 homes are viewed every second
on Zillow mobile. To many, the Zestimate ® is synonymous with home appraisal.
Know your home’s value without paying a penny.
It aggregates public data including most recent home prices, asking
prices of surrounding homes and quality of schools into an algorithm to get an
estimated property value. Zillow is two cups data, one cup wishful thinking and
a fistful of black magic.
February 2006 was the big launch: A million visitors in the first
3 days!! By early 2012, Zillow welcomed 30 million unique users each month.
That meteoric growth is due to the team constantly highlighting products and
user feedback that infuses social media into everyday culture. They use
banners, pop-ups, tweets and Facebook posts to keep their top of mind
awareness.
How can a company spend ZERO dollars on advertising for the first
7 years? Zillow’s amazing success story provides real estate agents with lead
generation, brand-building and a platform to educate the consumer. It’s a place
to showcase your local knowledge as long as you provide useful information to
your audience. Agents are Zillow’s #1 fans as it gives agents a springboard for
much needed visibility in a swarm of competition. They are creating property
websites, video blogs and sharing successes on Facebook and Twitter. Every week I see an agent friend sharing a new
listing on Facebook or congratulating their clients who just closed on their
first home.
Whether you own, rent or live at home with the folks, everyone is
interested in real estate and home values, especially in their backyard. In the
real estate peak of 2006, users had such fun watching their home values
steadily during the launch of Zillow. It was a game: how much value did I earn
this week? Good times. And like all good things, that came to an end in 2008
when home values plummeted and the foreclosure and short sale rates were
sharply on the rise. In 2008-2010, checking your home’s value on Zillow became
as much fun as getting a tooth pulled. Not so much! The mobile app was launched
in 2009 which meant that you now had the power to obsessively check the value
of your house while standing in the grocery store line, sitting at a restaurant
or relaxing from your beach chair.
Zillow touts a fresh selection of relevant info for the
prospective homebuyers and sellers through data trends, celebrity homes and
staging tips. There really is something for everyone. There is also a section
called “Zillow Advice” which is a great source for prospective homebuyers to
search for topics they have questions on. Zillow was first to display earnings
on social media and have seen incredible success as a result. Now other companies are following in their
virtual footprints.
They were first to make a series of infographics out of earnings
numbers that communicated concepts and key messages. They take massive amounts
of facts and stats and grind them into bite-sized nuggets for consumption by
the consumer.
The app also enables you to edit certain facts which would put
your home in its best virtual light. They have a top-notch marketing team which
have done a phenomenal job of making Zillow a household name.
Well, the time has come. I type in my home address and hold my
breath. Two very long seconds later I receive Zillow’s response. Ok not so bad.
$5k less than June, $10k more than August. How does one house lose then gain in
value so rapidly? Local home sales and a bit of that black magic. Go figure.
What’s your home worth? Just ask Zillow.
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