CAR Internet vs Traditional Buyers Survey Findings

Date:August 21, 2007 | Author: | Category:Advertising

A couple of months ago the California Associations of Realtors (CAR) released their “Internet vs. Traditional Buyers Survey – 2007.” A ton of great information came out of the report, including the fact that 72% of all buyers are using the Internet to help them in the process of finding a home! There is also some great information about which real estate sites people are finding helpful in the process. According to the survey:

  • 54% of home buyers visited Zillow.com to help make their decision.
  • Only 12% of all home buyers looked at newspaper/magazine ads to search for a home, finding the Internet much more dynamic in providing more information than they could find in a print ad.
  • 98% of Internet buyers were pleased with their experience using the Internet during the home buying process, receiving above average levels of satisfaction.
  • While more people are using the Internet to research a home, as with previous years, 9 of 10 home buyers still hired an agent to assist them through the home sales transaction.

I’m pleased that after only 18 months of being live, 54% of home buyers have visited Zillow.com. I was curious as to how homes listed for sale on Zillow fared with those listed on a local MLS. Using our Seattle local MLS, the NWLMS, I went ahead and pulled some metrics from our site and compared the two. Here is what I found:

  • When a home is posted in the NWMLS and not posted on Zillow, the average Zillow page views for that home increase 70x over homes not for sale. Obviously buyers are researching the for sale homes on Zillow.com – even if the listings are not yet published on our site. 
  • When a home is posted in the NWMLS and posted on Zillow the average page views for that home increase 240x. Wow.

This information definitely puts the pressure on us to get Zillow Feeds out the door as quickly as possible so that brokers and agents can easily advertise their listings for free – stay tuned. In the meantime, remember you can do this manually today and sit back and watch your page views increase!