Top Real Estate Websites

6 Comments so far

1. Andrea Davis on August 12, 2008 3:26 pm

   Thankful to Zillow for the exposure and opportunity to connect with Buyers/Sellers. At WINDERMERE WELCOME HOME we strive to meet our clients needs in the market place through technology and Zillow has made it possible for us to lead in growth and development for agents and ultimately provide a higher a standard to clients. The face of Real Estate is growing, and so are the needs and expectations of the consumer - THANKFULLY! It’s more then stomping a sign in the yard and filling the brochure box. By Zillow allowing agents to report properties for sale we meet the consumers needs and filled a void in neglectful real estate care. Should Zillow intrupt the free contribution of agents it further perpetuates a lapse in care for all consumers.

2. Sara on August 12, 2008 6:44 pm

   Thanks for the comment. One of the reasons that Zillow is able to grow and continue to be a top trafficked site is because of the support of people like yourself. We consider you a partner: you get a platform for exposure and we get content that makes the public use the site, giving us ad inventory space to sell. Because this is a partnership, charging agents to upload their listings doesn’t make sense.
   Thank you for using the site, we are committed to striving to drive traffic and business to you.

3. Andrea Davis on August 13, 2008 4:47 pm

   Sara: Appreicate the platform - can you help me by clarifying something? Why can homes be reported for sale in some areas yet in other you can’t - it appears as though some have gone to ‘direct feed’ - I am guessing that Zillow is pulling from local boards - my thought and concern is that they aren’t then maintained by listing agents and reflect inaccurate sell price. In all other cities, anyone can report a house for sale, and if an agent wants to claim their own listing they can. That was an excellent tool, but I am confused why this has changed in some areas.

   Your comments would be awesome. Thanks

   Andrea Davis

4. Sara on August 13, 2008 5:27 pm

   Andrea- Anyone can still “report a home” being for sale, as you mention in your post. This has not changed. However, the listing agent or broker will always trump these “report for sale” listings, as we consider them to be the highest authority on the home.

   We get listings from a number of sources, most of which do indeed come from a direct feed. We take direct feeds from a lot of brokers, a few MLSs, and a number of syndication services. It is our experience that when a feed is in place, the information is kept much more current than if the information is being manually maintained. If a listing is submitted to us manually, whether that be report for sale or posted by the listing agent or the homeowner, we do send periodic emails to the poster to remind them to keep the information current.

5. Andrea Davis on August 13, 2008 6:28 pm

   Sara: THANK YOU so much - I didn’t think the whole Zillow system had changed, but recently properties can not be Reported for sale in Fremont California by anyone other then the listing agent. This would seem to negate the very essences of Zillow’s forward thinking approach to the fair and open forum of information to benefit the consumer. I am a firm fan of Zillow. So anything you can offer me for help would be great.

6. Innovign on August 19, 2008 7:01 pm

   I agree, Zillow is definitely one of the best on that list. I firmly believe Zillow will continue to move up in time too. Realtor.com and Yahoo!, I believe, rely on MLS listings, which is beginning to change with XML listing syndication.

   Afterall, why should you have to pay $700.00/year for an MLS membership when we have the technology (Zillow) to do this for free, basically?

   Thank you Zillow!