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Best Answer
- Roger & Kristen Garza, "GarzaCountry"
- Contributions:106
Wow, I won't pay 9.95 per each hand entered listing. That's crazy. Zillow is in trouble! There may be some that pay, but in this economy.... I don't think so! Thanks for the memories, Zillow. Roger & Kristen, Realtor.
- ANGALEE JONES REALTOR, "REALTOR ANGALEE"
- Contributions:69
Hi: I agree with Seth Robbins below! He is right on!
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
Yes, I set the minimum price in my searches, usually to $15k; but only about $2k in Mississippi.
That doesn't resolve the issue of the hundreds of posts asking why something doesn't have a price, or why the price is out of line.
Nor does it resolve the negative affect on the trend data on the "local pages". Homes for sale on Zillow wrong, Median list price? Maybe right, likely wrong. List price per sq ft? Maybe right, likely wrong. List to sale price ratio? Maybe right, likely wrong. % homes foreclosed? likely wrong....
That doesn't resolve the issue of the hundreds of posts asking why something doesn't have a price, or why the price is out of line.
Nor does it resolve the negative affect on the trend data on the "local pages". Homes for sale on Zillow wrong, Median list price? Maybe right, likely wrong. List price per sq ft? Maybe right, likely wrong. List to sale price ratio? Maybe right, likely wrong. % homes foreclosed? likely wrong....
- sara bonert, "Sara Bonert"
- Contributions:920
Just looked at our feeds. In the country, there are 1,396 listings with a price between $1-$10. Many of these are manually entered on the site, so it will be interesting to see how the new fee structure effects those. My guess it is that they'll be greatly reduced. Also, we are currently writing code that should launch in Q1 of next year that will reject For Sale listings not of a certain price point (probably around $1000 or less or something to that effect).
Also, there are 576,814 listing with $0 as a price, 99% of them are from the 2 foreclosure feeds we accept. No arguement from me that this needs to be cleaned up. I don't directly manage those 2 partner relationships, since we do indeed have a financial arrangement with them, but I can tell you that it is something that is actively being discussed. I don't have anything to report back to you about at this time.
(although if you just set your filter to search for listings for more than $10, you won't get these returned in your search)
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
Just in Los Angeles county alone, 106 listed with prices of $1 or less for sale by agents... 34 additional that are "foreclosures".
California, 397 listed with prices of $1 or less by agents, 1 by owner, and an additional 161 that are "foreclosures".
No list price? They are not "for sale". Take them all out of the database!
You can look them up just as easily as I can.
California, 397 listed with prices of $1 or less by agents, 1 by owner, and an additional 161 that are "foreclosures".
No list price? They are not "for sale". Take them all out of the database!
You can look them up just as easily as I can.
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
Sam is right. Unless address are posted, it is not "for sale". It is only a link to their site to sell subscriptions to a faulty database. Foreclosure.com should be blocked from auto feeding entirely until they clean up their act.
- Sam DeBord, "SeattleHome.com"
- Contributions:3472
Many things have been done well, the trumping order of multiple feeds in particular. Hopefully these next upgrades will somehow address P's concerns of the auto-expire, which makes sense.
The lack of addresses on Foreclosure .com listings, on the other hand, are hardly a privacy issue. Anyone who signs up for a free trial on their site can get the address, and it's linked directly from the Z listing. Sounds like a profit issue to me.
Half of these homes are not for sale, not going to be foreclosed upon, and never should be purported to be "listings". They're probably the biggest damage to the total database.
The lack of addresses on Foreclosure .com listings, on the other hand, are hardly a privacy issue. Anyone who signs up for a free trial on their site can get the address, and it's linked directly from the Z listing. Sounds like a profit issue to me.
Half of these homes are not for sale, not going to be foreclosed upon, and never should be purported to be "listings". They're probably the biggest damage to the total database.
- sara bonert, "Sara Bonert"
- Contributions:920
The only feed that I know of where we process a listing without the address, is foreclosure.com, and this is for security or privacy issues? If you find a listing without the price or address, please feel free to send them to me via my profile. The only other exception to this is where the agent has selected 'do not show address online' usually at the request of the owner. In which case the listing shows up in the search results, with the address not displayed, but not on the map. As far as inaccurate addresses, we usually don't know that they are indeed inaccurate. But you can flag those as well, and our customer service will take a look.
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
The trumping order will still not address feeds that have incorrect addresses or missing addresses. Missing addresses need to be skipped. Incorrect addresses need to be looked up and resolved better, or skipped.
Nor will it resolve missing data issues, especially missing listing price. If there is no "listing price", it is not "for sale" and the feed needs to be rejected.
Nor will it resolve missing data issues, especially missing listing price. If there is no "listing price", it is not "for sale" and the feed needs to be rejected.
- sara bonert, "Sara Bonert"
- Contributions:920
Oh, one more thing - With the new manaully entered listings, the person who posts the property will be emailed regularly throughout the 6 months of advertising they have purchased, asking if the home is still for sale or if there have been any status changes. There is a mechanism in place where if they don't respond to a certain number of the email within a certain period of time, the listing will indeed come down.
- sara bonert, "Sara Bonert"
- Contributions:920
Pasadenan - With regards to auto-feed data quality, you're right that they were is room for improvement here, but it is harder to control.
We have a small change coming in in Jan/Feb that will be behind-the-scenes. It won't 100% help, but it will improve things.
Right now, when we receive the same listing from multiple sources, we have a trumping order we go through (highest to lowest: agent, broker, mls, syndicator). When there is a tie in the syndicator category, it just goes to first in. There are vast levels of quality among this last group. We are building in more trumping tiers into this last level, to better rank the syndicators whose information is of higher quality (for example, those whose data comes straight from the mls will be ranked higher). Dated information will still be an issue, as long as old data is still left in feeds, but this is big step in the right direction for us.
We have a small change coming in in Jan/Feb that will be behind-the-scenes. It won't 100% help, but it will improve things.
Right now, when we receive the same listing from multiple sources, we have a trumping order we go through (highest to lowest: agent, broker, mls, syndicator). When there is a tie in the syndicator category, it just goes to first in. There are vast levels of quality among this last group. We are building in more trumping tiers into this last level, to better rank the syndicators whose information is of higher quality (for example, those whose data comes straight from the mls will be ranked higher). Dated information will still be an issue, as long as old data is still left in feeds, but this is big step in the right direction for us.
- sara bonert, "Sara Bonert"
- Contributions:920
For all the late comers to this string, Pasadenan below has it right that the $9.95 (for 6 months worth of advertising) only applies to those listings which a MANUALLY entered into the system (not fed through a syndication service). And the people that pay the $9.95 will have their listings featured, meaning that they will show up at the top of searches. Featuring a listing typically generates 6 times the traffic than a non-featured listing.
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
Zillow indicates 97% of the "listings" on the site are from "auto feeds" from other sites, and those won't be affected by the $9.95 for 6 months charge that is only charged to people that manually enter the listing signed on as a user. They indicate that of the 3% that are manually entered; 1/3 are "for sale by owner", and the other 2/3rds are by agents.
They indicate the agents can easily change theirs to "auto feed" from another site at no cost, or if they want "featured" listings with 6 times the number of page views, they can upgrade an auto-fed provided entry, or they can still manually enter those, in either case paying $9.95 for 6 months of "featured listing" each.
The For Sale by owner will have fewer choices. It appears they will either need to:
1) pay for the "featured listing" for 6 months ($9.95)
OR
2) down-grade to a "make me move"
OR
3) use a broker to do the auto feed, thus the broker's name and contact info appears on the listing,
OR
4) Fudge the input info on the listing sites that provide free auto feeds to pretend that the FSBO person is an agent.
They indicate the agents can easily change theirs to "auto feed" from another site at no cost, or if they want "featured" listings with 6 times the number of page views, they can upgrade an auto-fed provided entry, or they can still manually enter those, in either case paying $9.95 for 6 months of "featured listing" each.
The For Sale by owner will have fewer choices. It appears they will either need to:
1) pay for the "featured listing" for 6 months ($9.95)
OR
2) down-grade to a "make me move"
OR
3) use a broker to do the auto feed, thus the broker's name and contact info appears on the listing,
OR
4) Fudge the input info on the listing sites that provide free auto feeds to pretend that the FSBO person is an agent.
- Song San, "song san"
- Contributions:85
I have never posted my listings at Zillow, but through my own website, but when I was looking at it tonight, I thought the $9.95 is if you want your listing to be a featured listing.
I would be curious how this works because as a broker when I post a listing, there is a free tool that would send the information to be posted on a bunch of website like Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate, etc.
I also have a couple of widgets on my site from Zillow for Home Mortgage, CMA, etc. I would imagine many sites including myself would take off the Zillow widgets once traffic to their site drops dramatically so I would be interested what are their next steps.
I would be curious how this works because as a broker when I post a listing, there is a free tool that would send the information to be posted on a bunch of website like Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate, etc.
I also have a couple of widgets on my site from Zillow for Home Mortgage, CMA, etc. I would imagine many sites including myself would take off the Zillow widgets once traffic to their site drops dramatically so I would be interested what are their next steps.
- Melody91
- Contributions:229
Hello & this is brand new to me...off line during the holidays.
Is this for brokers only, or for those of us who just try to be good neighbors and chime in for experienced advice where we have it?
I'd greatly appreciate an explanation of that.
Happy 2010 to ALL.
Sincerely,
Melody
Is this for brokers only, or for those of us who just try to be good neighbors and chime in for experienced advice where we have it?
I'd greatly appreciate an explanation of that.
Happy 2010 to ALL.
Sincerely,
Melody
- Jeff Star, "ShortsaleAgentofAZ"
- Contributions:967
RJ,
The only difference is that Zillow is charging to list on their site. Do you really think it's going to be that much better because they are charging now? Where is the benifit? How is going to help you out? What it's going to do is chase away the top producing agents. These top producer maybe not in your neck of the woods, but here in Arizona supply Zillow with a lot of very value real estate content. When you have 4 or 5 agent that suppy 500 to 600 listing on the site thats alot of properties in one area. Take that away the search will become very inaccurate. We really don't care about the FSBO stuff your referring to it doesn't effect us.
- HistoricLandmark408
- Contributions:9
Jeff Star, the ShortSaleAgentofAZ, writes that "Zillow will only be showing a small percentage of the homes on the market" as if to suggest that this has no value as a search process tool to the FSBOs and the Buyers looking for the FSBOs The spirit and intent of Zillow was to ESTABLISH a new way of doing search and biz for the exclusive benefit of Seller & Buyer, not to GENERATE yet another "me too" 3rd Party service product nor arena for the realtors/brokers.
He asks "Why should a buyer come here when he can go elsewhere and get all the listings" as if all Buyers routinely prefer a HOG database to a more tiered process for their search without the overt dominance and underlying hunger of 3rd parties influencing their pace and direction.
Check the premise. Zillow is a consumer tool, not a marketing toy. Underestimate the power of prerogative on the part of Buyers, and there will be less business to do, not more. No innovative alternative to Business As Usual is going to fail. This is a promise and a guarantee. One you can count on.
Zillow will become very inaccurate once all these top producing agents stop listing their homes on this site. Zillow will only be showing a small percentage of the homes on the market. Why should a buyer come here when to can go elsewhere and get all the listings. Ten bucks dosen't sound like much, but it really adds up when you have over 70 listing. Don't forget realtors are cheap. :)
He asks "Why should a buyer come here when he can go elsewhere and get all the listings" as if all Buyers routinely prefer a HOG database to a more tiered process for their search without the overt dominance and underlying hunger of 3rd parties influencing their pace and direction.
Check the premise. Zillow is a consumer tool, not a marketing toy. Underestimate the power of prerogative on the part of Buyers, and there will be less business to do, not more. No innovative alternative to Business As Usual is going to fail. This is a promise and a guarantee. One you can count on.
Zillow will become very inaccurate once all these top producing agents stop listing their homes on this site. Zillow will only be showing a small percentage of the homes on the market. Why should a buyer come here when to can go elsewhere and get all the listings. Ten bucks dosen't sound like much, but it really adds up when you have over 70 listing. Don't forget realtors are cheap. :)
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
Is it my imagination, or is there already less participation?
Or perhaps people are just on holiday break?
Or perhaps people are just on holiday break?
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
If it really works to get rid of fake sales info and parties "stealing" claimed properties from the true owner, it may be a "good thing"; but as previously mentioned, most of the "problem" listings I've seen and have seen discussed have been from "auto-feeds". Really, the manual listings not only need an "auto expire", but the auto-feeds need better filtering and provision to lock when abused by a given party.
- HistoricLandmark408
- Contributions:9
Hello from Evanston-Chicago. I will gladly pay the $9.95 twice year, though I am a one-property Seller, not a Realtor/Broker. And I had come to the site, because I perceived it to be a most interesting new world alternative to the more traditional 3rd Party or brokered transactions. More important, I agree with Zillow that reducing the database to Sellers with a more focused intent is provides an immense lift in visibility for this particular segment of the market. The "Make Me Move" thing was cute-cute-cute, of course, and certainly drew viewers (gawkers?) to the site, but taking Zillow to some next level now seems most appealing as well for those of us Sellers & Buyers or Buyers & Sellers who, frankly, welcome a more direct look at eachother right up-front with no intermediaries to facilitate (or clutter) the prospects, the process, the deal.... writing strictly for me. -R. J. Dickerson
- Jeff Star, "ShortsaleAgentofAZ"
- Contributions:967
Zillow will become very inaccurate once all these top producing agents stop listing their homes on this site. Zillow will only be showing a small percentage of the homes on the market. Why should a buyer come here when to can go elsewhere and get all the listings. Ten bucks dosen't sound like much, but it really adds up when you have over 70 listing. Don't forget realtors are cheap. :)
- Paul, "Coloradopaul"
- Contributions:3
What is Zillow thinking? Who knew that 10 bucks would kill Zillow...
I love Zillow and think as a free service it is great... but I have no interest in paying...
I can't imagine anyone paying.
--Paul
I love Zillow and think as a free service it is great... but I have no interest in paying...
I can't imagine anyone paying.
--Paul
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
Page views to my house on Zillow with respect to time:
Web address for full size image:
http://images2.zillow.com/is/image/i0/i2/i84/IS15ladp9x0xsir.jpg
(sorry, you have to paste it into the address bar as Zillow automatically adds www. before "zillow" on links)
Web address for full size image:
http://images2.zillow.com/is/image/i0/i2/i84/IS15ladp9x0xsir.jpg
(sorry, you have to paste it into the address bar as Zillow automatically adds www. before "zillow" on links)
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
As a consumer of data, I see it quite differently.
Even though my home has not been "for sale", I received over 93k page views to my home; more than most Realtors will get for their entire website in a year, let alone to any one listing.
And yet, when I tried to suggest ways that some sellers could increase their exposure on the site, better than some of the "featured" offerings now, many are not able to generate more than a few per day due to location. Thus Zillow may be helpful for marketing for some, but may not offer much of anything for others.
Sure, $10 is not very much if one is serious in selling and believes the exposure will help, and sure, if one is not serious, they can just set a "make me move"; but if they are testing the waters? They may choose to skip the site. Which means the FSBO's will be under-represented in the data, and that many properties for sale will not show up in the searches.
So, for accuracy of data reasons, I would much prefer Zillow to go after the defective and misleading Auto Feeds, charge manual listers that want customer service, priority treatment and other features, and leave the basic manual listing alone with the exception of adding the auto-expire.
Even though my home has not been "for sale", I received over 93k page views to my home; more than most Realtors will get for their entire website in a year, let alone to any one listing.
And yet, when I tried to suggest ways that some sellers could increase their exposure on the site, better than some of the "featured" offerings now, many are not able to generate more than a few per day due to location. Thus Zillow may be helpful for marketing for some, but may not offer much of anything for others.
Sure, $10 is not very much if one is serious in selling and believes the exposure will help, and sure, if one is not serious, they can just set a "make me move"; but if they are testing the waters? They may choose to skip the site. Which means the FSBO's will be under-represented in the data, and that many properties for sale will not show up in the searches.
So, for accuracy of data reasons, I would much prefer Zillow to go after the defective and misleading Auto Feeds, charge manual listers that want customer service, priority treatment and other features, and leave the basic manual listing alone with the exception of adding the auto-expire.
- Sam DeBord, "SeattleHome.com"
- Contributions:3472
I think that these featured listings will be a small part of the market, nothign to worry about unless your'e a FSBO.
If you are FSBO--you're trying to cut costs and market your home on your own. Isn't this the perfect place to advertise your home for $10? It's about the price of the little sign you stuck in your front yard that will reach 1% of the people who will see it on zillow.
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21460
I see the $10 mostly affecting the "FSBO" as they have no easy way to get a listing feed with their own name without fudging on the information.
But Sara -
The real issue with the site is not the manually entered and forgotten... if that was it, you would just set an auto-expire at 5 months, and an auto e-mail for the owner to "renew" their listing in 4 months to keep from losing their data. I don't think even 10% of those that manual enter need "support" for creating their entries.
The REAL issue with problem listings (that we read hundreds of times a week....) is that auto-feeds are:
1) not updated, stealing already sold properties from the claimed owner
2) the wrong address
3) creating additional entries without county records data for the same address
4) have no price
5) have no address
6) have no street number
7) do not exist and are just a random photo and link
8) have no sq footage or no bedrooms, or other data missing...
THUS, though I know you need to cover the overhead for providing customer support, it appears that more needs to be charged for the defective auto feeds and less to the manually entered.
Why not only charge those that WANT customer support for their entries?
And why not BLOCK all auto-feeds that aren't complete and/or can't be reconciled, forcing them to do manual entry? And BLOCK all manual feeds that other users are complaining are defective or out of date?
But Sara -
The real issue with the site is not the manually entered and forgotten... if that was it, you would just set an auto-expire at 5 months, and an auto e-mail for the owner to "renew" their listing in 4 months to keep from losing their data. I don't think even 10% of those that manual enter need "support" for creating their entries.
The REAL issue with problem listings (that we read hundreds of times a week....) is that auto-feeds are:
1) not updated, stealing already sold properties from the claimed owner
2) the wrong address
3) creating additional entries without county records data for the same address
4) have no price
5) have no address
6) have no street number
7) do not exist and are just a random photo and link
8) have no sq footage or no bedrooms, or other data missing...
THUS, though I know you need to cover the overhead for providing customer support, it appears that more needs to be charged for the defective auto feeds and less to the manually entered.
Why not only charge those that WANT customer support for their entries?
And why not BLOCK all auto-feeds that aren't complete and/or can't be reconciled, forcing them to do manual entry? And BLOCK all manual feeds that other users are complaining are defective or out of date?
- Lori Winterhalter Remax, "LoriWinterhalter"
- Contributions:640
I got a new listing last week & it is updated on Postlets now for 6 days. It still is not showing up on Zillow.
Zillow is saying other feeds work to get your home showng on Zillow is not working.
My listings are not coming to Zillow from Postlets even though the box is checked on Postlets & the Link is there.
Zillow is saying other feeds work to get your home showng on Zillow is not working.
My listings are not coming to Zillow from Postlets even though the box is checked on Postlets & the Link is there.
- Lori Winterhalter Remax, "LoriWinterhalter"
- Contributions:640
I am a complete Zillow believer. I do think this is going to really hurt Zillow. Not that I am not willing to pay the money but I think a lot of people won't and the information that Realtors provide to their site is invaluable to Zillow because whenever I list a home I make sure it is in the correct location and the correct square footage adding a consistent accuracy value to their site.
I do believe people will shift to other websites due to this. I pay for a showcase ad on Zillow and signed up to be there for a year. I had no idea they would be adding this new fee and probably would not have signed up for a year.
I myself just today before reading this blog uploaded all of my listings to Trulia thinking many people will leave Zillow and look at other avenues. There are so many other sites that will show up.
$10 or $9.95 does not seem like a large amount but when you are already paying for a showcase ad & paying all of the other fees associated with being a Realtor it really adds up. I was surprised to see Zillow charging this.
I do understand that it is free if you go through Postlets, but the problem is Postlets does not allow you to set the location on the map of the accurate location or add any more details that Zillow allowed in the past. Postlets is extremely limited information and it will not update that information to Zillow if there is nowhere in Postlets to enter it.
The whole idea was that Zillow allowed another avenue to give accurate and more complete information to share with the buyers and sellers. If that is gone the value of Zillow will decrease in the Real Estate world dramatically when it was just growing in popularity.
Lori Winterhalter
REMAX Equity Group
www.YourAgentFriend.com
503-504-6173
I do believe people will shift to other websites due to this. I pay for a showcase ad on Zillow and signed up to be there for a year. I had no idea they would be adding this new fee and probably would not have signed up for a year.
I myself just today before reading this blog uploaded all of my listings to Trulia thinking many people will leave Zillow and look at other avenues. There are so many other sites that will show up.
$10 or $9.95 does not seem like a large amount but when you are already paying for a showcase ad & paying all of the other fees associated with being a Realtor it really adds up. I was surprised to see Zillow charging this.
I do understand that it is free if you go through Postlets, but the problem is Postlets does not allow you to set the location on the map of the accurate location or add any more details that Zillow allowed in the past. Postlets is extremely limited information and it will not update that information to Zillow if there is nowhere in Postlets to enter it.
The whole idea was that Zillow allowed another avenue to give accurate and more complete information to share with the buyers and sellers. If that is gone the value of Zillow will decrease in the Real Estate world dramatically when it was just growing in popularity.
Lori Winterhalter
REMAX Equity Group
www.YourAgentFriend.com
503-504-6173
- Sam DeBord, "SeattleHome.com"
- Contributions:3472
ALL AGENTS:
Read the details first. You can still post your listings for free. Don't jump on the angry train.
1) You're a broker sending a direct XML feed to Zillow.
Nothing changes, it's still free.
2) You're an agent who currently uses Postlets/Listhub/vFlyer etc. to publish/syndicate your listings to Zillow and other sites.
Nothing changes, it's still free.
3) You're an agent who manually creates their listings on the Zillow site directly.
You need to sign up for a free syndication site to continue listing for free - you should be using one already anyway.
4) You're a FSBO who wants to upload their home to Zillow.
This is the only group that is required to pay. Manually post a 6 month listing for $10 on Zillow and get a Featured Listing.
- Pam Aubry, "Absolutely Aubry!"
- Contributions:130
What a shame! I'm out also. There are too many free sites where we can advertise.
Is Zillow really charging 9.95 to post a listing? How do you feel about that?
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